Acute and Chronic Effects of Adipose Tissue Growth on Cellular and Metabolic Processes

社会对肥胖有一种成见。这种关注是深远的，从我们对身体脂肪的关注延伸到食品和农业。例如，在农业中，人们关注的是乳制品和牲畜中脂肪的数量和类型。作为一个群体或个人，我们不想太胖或太瘦。我们也很关注我们有多少脂肪，储存在哪里，是在我们的肚子周围，还是在我们的臀部和大腿周围。我们知道不是所有的脂肪都是一样的，它的表现也取决于储存的地方。尽管整个社会都在关注脂肪，但我们对脂肪细胞本身以及脂肪细胞所处的环境却知之甚少。拟议的研究项目旨在了解脂肪细胞是如何被编程来储存脂肪的，以及脂肪细胞编程是如何影响其周围的组织环境和生物系统的。为了回答我们的问题，我们首先要确定脂肪细胞的早期编程是否会影响1)它在生命后期的行为，2)它周围的环境，以及3)我们的身体如何使用糖、脂肪和能量。我们还想知道早期脂肪细胞编程对男性和女性的影响是否不同。如果我们能够理解脂肪细胞的行为方式，我们就可以利用这些信息来针对脂肪细胞行为的变化。拟议研究项目的发现将有助于改变我们对脂肪细胞及其对生物系统影响的看法。这些信息将通过影响健康、农业和食品科学行业，潜在地造福我们的社会。

Society has a preoccupation with fat. This preoccupation is far-reaching and extends from our concern with body fat to food and agriculture. For example in agriculture, there is a focus is on the amount and type of fat in dairy products and livestock. As a population or individual, we do not want to be too fat or too skinny. We are also fixated on how much fat we have and where we store it, whether it is around our stomachs or around our hips and thighs. We know that not all fat is equal and that it behaves differently based on where it is stored. Though we are preoccupied with fat as a society, we don't know much about the fat cell itself and the environment in which the fat cell lives. The proposed program of research seeks to understand how fat cells are programmed to store the amount of fat that they do and how fat cell programming affects its surrounding tissue environment and biological systems. To answer our questions we first want to determine if early-life programming of the fat cell effects 1) its behaviour later in life, 2) its surround environment, and 3) how our bodies use sugar, fat and energy. We also want to know if the effects of early-life programming of fat cells are different in men and women. If we can understand why a fat cell behaves the way it does we can use that information to target changes in fat cell behaviour. The findings from the proposed research program will contribute towards changing how we think about the fat cell and its impact on biological systems. This information would potentially benefit our society through impacting health, agriculture, and food science industries.