The Fat Problem

Fat is your most dangerous organ. Yes, organ. While it is often falsely described as a 

mere expression of laziness or gluttony, fat is essential for health, controlling 

and guiding crucial processes in your body. But if you have too much fat, it starts 

to disrupt your metabolism becoming one of the most deadly things 

that can happen to your body. Today more people are obese than 

starving, which is a huge victory. There are all sorts of ideas about the cause of the obesity epidemic but it 

really comes down to one thing: For millions of years, humans had to expend a 

lot of effort to get food and often faced hunger. Our bodies evolved to hold 

on to every bit of energy. And then suddenly we had an overabundance 

of food we didn't need to move much for. We made food hyperpalatable and ultra processed, 

with loads of unhealthy fats, salt and sugar. Our brains love this, so our food is extremely 

hard to resist, to the point of being addictive. It is also extremely convenient, cheap and you get a lot of energy per 

volume – so it’s not very satiating. This leads to most of us regularly 

overeating without realising it. And food is aggressively 

marketed, especially to children. Fat comes with a lot of shame 

and blame which is pretty unfair, in a world full of things that make you 

feel nice and are available within minutes. Body fat is also often unfairly villainized – 

but it is crucially important for your health and if you don't have enough, you can 

suffer problems from infertility to a weak immune system, fatigue, mental 

health issues and osteoporosis. Still none of this changes 

how bad excess fat is for us. So how does our fat organ become so 

destructive and can we help ourselves? What Is Fat? If you consume more energy than you 

burn you store it as triglycerides, an organic battery bustling with energy. Collected in a large drop of 

fat inside a white fat cell. Gain weight and white fat cells expand 

with fat, lose weight and they shrink. Only in the last few decades have 

we learned fats' most important job: Fat is an endocrine organ, part of the system 

that makes and regulates your hormones: chemical signals for your brain, liver, muscles, digestive tract and immune system, 

making them work correctly together. Unfortunately if you become overweight and obese, your fat organ and the many 

hormones it releases turn insane. In adults fat comes in two types of white fat 

depots – most of it is subcutaneous fat, the gooey soft stuff under your skin that insulates 

against the cold and serves as energy storage. The other one is visceral fat nestled between your organs providing a soft cushion 

for your sensitive insides. But it also happens to be more dangerous. These fat cells are super sensitive to 

stress hormones like cortisol or adrenaline. When they pick up a surge of stress, 

they release fatty acids directly into your blood and are picked up by your 

liver, as a rapid source of energy. On top of that your visceral fat 

is very metabolically active, in a constant hormonal dialog 

with the rest of your body. This is also why the health 

of two people with the same weight and amount of fat can be totally different. If you are pear shaped and your fat 

is mostly in your hips or limbs you are much less at risk than someone apple 

shaped with a lot of fat in their torso. Bite by Bite As you gain unhealthy weight, excess visceral fat triggers a cascade 

of negative changes all at once. Fat cells bloat up to their limit until they outgrow their blood supply 

and get starved of oxygen. They become critically stressed or even die. This is bad. If you are overweight or 

obese your fat is basically a wounded organ leaking stress and poison into your system. Especially your visceral fat, even more triggered by the extra stress 

hormones, makes your blood more fatty. This overfeeds your organs like 

your liver or your muscles, who can’t keep up anymore 

and begin to take damage. The cellular stress and dead fat cells are emergency signals that call 

your immune system to a fight. Armies of macrophages invade your fat tissue, creating clusters, trying to eliminate 

the cause of the stress but can’t. So they stay and call for more help. In a lean person’s fat, immune cells make up about 

5% of cells – in an obese person's fat, up to 40%! Active immune cells cause inflammation, bloating up your tissue and 

releasing even more alarm signals. Which is good for a short amount 

of time when you are sick. But if it becomes chronic, it’s like 

your entire body is under friendly fire. The inflammation molecules and fatty 

acids rip countless tiny wounds into the insides of your blood vessels, which leads 

to plaques that desperately try to close them. This narrows your blood vessels and 

reduces the flow of oxygen-rich blood. Inflammation also causes your blood 

pressure to rise, so your heart has to work harder and your risk of heart 

attacks or strokes increases massively. To make things worse your fat organ’s 

hormone production gets out of whack. Like leptin, the satiety hormone. With a healthy amount of fat, 

leptin tells your brain when you have enough energy storage, can 

eat less and spend more energy. But if you have too much fat, 

instead of becoming less hungry, your brain becomes resistant against 

the constant flood of leptin. This breaks your internal food thermostat. Which is one of the reasons why many people 

who are overweight feel intense hunger. Their fat is screaming at their 

brain that they have enough but the brain is not hearing the message anymore. Your sex hormones also get out of whack, testosterone is lowered while 

estrogen is over produced. In women this increases the risk 

of breast cancer significantly. Most people are not aware how much the 

risk of cancer rises with excess fat. In the US almost 10% of all cancers are 

directly related to being overweight or obese. And to top this off, obese cancer 

patients have much worse outcomes, succumbing to the disease more often and sooner. None of this is great but 

even worse is what happens to one of your most important hormones: Insulin. When the Hormone World Explodes Insulin is a hormone produced 

by your pancreas that tells your cells to open their tiny mouths 

and eat up glucose from your blood. It is your body’s way of screaming “dinner time”. Disastrously bombarded by the 

stress from your excess fat, cells all over your body become insulin resistant 

– worse at eating glucose and taking up energy. Your body tries to compensate by pumping 

out more insulin, screaming louder. This can go on silently for many years 

and progress to prediabetes – with no or only subtle symptoms like fatigue or hunger. But as the damage accumulates, eventually 

your body just can’t keep up anymore. Something breaks and you get Type 2 diabetes. The cells responsible for insulin 

production are so overworked that they stop functioning properly and eventually give in. Your insulin crashes drastically and your 

body can’t compensate, while the blood is now saturated with glucose – yet you are 

starving and feel exhausted and unwell. Imagine this as trillions of tiny, 

sharp shards floating through you, damaging your blood vessels, nerves and organs, 

causing slow but constant damage everywhere. At this point your body is so chronically inflamed 

that almost all organ systems are affected. The kidneys are overwhelmed, making you 

pee way more, your vision gets blurry, your immune system is severely weakened, wounds heal 

slower, dying nerves lead to numbness and pain. You may experience shortness of breath, 

chest discomfort, erectile dysfunction and high blood pressure, problems with your 

memory, focus, mood and even depression. Your risk of developing just about every 

possible deadly disease goes through the roof. On average Type 2 diabetes shaves 

10 years off your life and reduces your health span massively – 

arguably as much as smoking. If current obesity trends continue up to 1 

in 3 Americans will have diabetes by 2050. There is no nice way to put this: Excessive fat strains nearly 

every organ system in your body, ages you much quicker and often leads 

to multisystem damage and dysfunction. And yet, fat is still mostly discussed through 

the lens of aesthetics first and health second. Which is kind of baffling considering that 

most if not all of the toxic effects of your excess fat basically go away as soon as you 

lose it and start eating a healthy-ish diet. Once your fat cells contract again they stop 

being stressed and your immune system calms down. The excess blood fat and sugar drops to 

normal levels and your body recovers. Even if you already have full blown 

diabetes type 2, by losing weight you can reverse many of the negative effects and 

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