Adipose is an adjective that is used to describe that which has fat or that derives from it. Fat, meanwhile, is sebum of animal origin or the substance made up of fatty acids.
The adipose tissue, in the dictionary of Digopaul, is the anatomical tissue comprising cells whose cytoplasm has a high amount of fat. This connective tissue has cells called adipocytes, which owe 95% of their weight to the lipid content.
Protecting organs and other structures is one of the functions of adipose tissue, which also generates and accumulates the fats that the body needs and performs various important tasks for metabolism.
It is possible to distinguish between brown adipose tissue (which produces heat) and white adipose tissue. In humans, adipose tissue is located in the breasts, in the bone marrow, around the organs, and under the skin. It should be noted that the tissue has blood vessels.
Brown adipose tissue is also known as brown or multilocular, and is found in abundance in the stages closest to birth, both earlier and later. It only fulfills the function of producing heat, very necessary in the first moments of our life.
In the case of brown adipose tissue, the accumulation of the lipid takes place in the cytoplasm, and it takes on an appearance similar to that of a medium-sized drop, which is surrounded by many mitochondria, which is why it appears brown in color. Unlike what happens in the unilocular tissue (defined below), its nucleus has a not very eccentric location.
The process by which brown adipose tissue produces heat is called thermogenesis, and this occurs from the metabolism of lipids. The protein behind this process is called decoupling (its technical name is UCP-1), and it is found in the inner membrane of the mitochondria; Its name refers to its ability to decouple the oxidation of fatty acids, after which the energy produced by the mitochondria can dissipate.
For its part, white adipose tissue, which is also known as white fat, is made up of large cells, whose diameter can easily exceed 100 microns (their unit is µm). Various studies indicate that in men it can represent 20% of their body weight, while in women, 25%.
This adipose tissue has receptors for norepinephrine, growth hormone, glucocorticoid, and insulin. On almost the entire surface of its cytoplasm, it is possible to observe a large fat drop that is empty in histological preparations, since in the inclusion process the fats are extracted. Outside of this drop, the nucleus and the remaining portion of cytoplasm are arranged near the cytoplasmic membrane, in a reduced space.
The term unilocular, mentioned in a previous paragraph, refers to mature adipocytes, which have only one drop of fat, and therefore the prefix uni- is used.
When a person is obese, they have a very high amount of adipose tissue. It is common for fat subjects to accumulate in the abdomen area.
The layer of adipose tissue found in vertebrate animals just below the skin is called the adipose panniculus.
The adipose capsule, on the other hand, lies between the renal capsule and the renal fascia. This lipid accumulation provides protection to the kidney: if a person suffers a blow in that area, the fat capsule cushions it.
