Show 1068: What Do You Know About the Secret Life of Fat?

If you were to list the organs of the body, would it occur to you to include fat? Most people think of fat as a nuisance, an intruder or even an enemy to be overcome. But fat is crucial for normal physiological processes. What should you know about the secret life of fat?

Discovering the Secret Life of Fat:

Author Sylvia Tara is a biochemist who has been fascinated with fat. As she looked into its functions, she discovered many more than simple energy storage. It turns out that fat is metabolically and hormonally active. It communicates constantly with other cells in the body. How does it do that, and what are the results?

When Good Fat Goes Bad:

Find out how good fat can go bad and start to feed inflammation in the body. How do the microbes in our intestines affect our fat and its behavior? Fat cells interact in important ways with the immune system, particularly with T cells. Is that what accounts for the "obesity paradox," in which overweight people have better survival under certain stressful circumstances?

Dr. Tara reveals the secret life of fat and tells us about behavioral methods that can help us control how much fat we carry.

This Week's Guest:

Sylvia Tara holds a PhD in biochemistry fro the University of California at San Diego and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of The Secret Life of Fat: The Science Behind the Body's Least Understood Organ and What It Means for You. The website is http://thesecretlifeoffat.com/ The photo of Dr. Tara was taken by Joshua Michael Shelton.