Small Steps to Health

Differences Between the Fat Cells in Women and Men

May 21st, 2008 by asithi · 6 Comments

Men have only 26 billion fat cells in their bodies. That sounds weird, using the word “only.” Women, on the other hand, have 35 billion fat cells in our bodies. In addition, the fat cells in a woman’s body are 5 times larger than a man’s (more room for storage!).

How dieting impact our fat cells
Dieting shrinks the size of our fat cell, not decrease its number. However, most people end up starving themselves, eating poor nutritional foods, or not strength training (sometimes all three) when dieting. So what happens when you loose weight? You end up losing precious metabolically active muscle.

Our bodies are programmed for three basic survival behaviors — 1. fighting or fleeting, 2. feeding, and 3. reproducing. When you starve your body, it does not know that you are dieting for its own good. All it knows is that there might be a famine. Since muscle cells burns 70 times more calories than fat cells, it is going to get rid of the muscle cells first in order to conserve the remaining fuel in your body (don’t you love efficiency?). So when your body gets rid of its high fuel burners, you end up slowing down your metabolism (so you can survive on less food) even when you are not dieting.

When you yo-yo diet, you are basically replacing your muscle cells with fat cells each time you try a new diet. The diet usually fails, and when it does, the weight you regained is mostly fat. The average woman has 35 billion fat cells, but the average yo-yo dieter has even more.

Men are usually very good with building muscle when they are trying to loose weight as I mentioned previously. Maybe its intuitive or from playing sports as a youth, but they gravitate towards strength training.

Estrogen and our fat cells
Estrogen, the female sex hormone, encourages fat storage enzymes and determine the location of the excess fat storage in women’s bodies such as the hips, thighs, buttocks. These storage areas ensure your body is ready for baby making. After menopause, the estrogen level in our bodies drops. The locations of the fat storage encouraged by our hormones start to resemble the men’s in the stomach area.

Fat oxidation
You are probably thinking that women have no physical advantage compared to men. We have more fat cells to begin with and with our culture of fad dieting, we are multiplying them unintentionally. And then there is the fluctuating estrogen level in our bodies that make us do crazy things like howling at the moon at a certain time of the month (maybe it is just me). But there is a silver lining.

Pre-menopausal women are more efficient at removing digested fat from our bloodstream after a meal. The shorter the exposure to elevated levels of fat in our bloodstream, the lower the risk for clogged arteries and heart disease. Men do not have this protection.

That is the trade off. Women have a harder time managing our weight, but we have less risk of heart disease. Men build muscle faster and have an easier time managing their weight, but have a higher risk of heart disease from the prolonged exposure to digested fat circulating in their bloodstream after a meal. In other words, if a man and woman are both fast food junkies their entire lives without doing much exercise, the woman is most likely to live longer than the man.

It is important realize that no matter how we are built, there are factors within our control. Women can lift weights and quit yo-yo dieting. Men can eat a less fattening meal. As I mentioned before, your health is a three legged stool — genetics, physical exercise, and your eating habits. We cannot control our genetics, but physical exercise and our eating habits are all within our control. Whether or not you choose to take control, that is another story.

Until next time and thanks for stopping by.

References for this post:

Hormonal Balance: Understanding Hormones, Weight, and Your Metabolism: Scott Isaacs, Neil Shulman: Books ISBN: 1933503041 ISBN-13: 9781933503042

Ultrametabolism: The Simple Plan for Automatic Weight Loss: M.D. Mark Hyman: Books ISBN: 0743272560 ISBN-13: 9780743272568

Tagged Gender Differences, Weight Loss, fat cells, fat storage, women vs men