New Fat Cells, Same You?

Rethinking Weight Gain in Middle Age

When I first read Dr. Annabel Wang’s paper for Science, I had to pause. Even as a trained biologist, this research upended some of my assumptions about fat. It forced me to reconsider what it is, how it behaves, and why it expands where it expands as we age.

Like most people, I’ve been socialized to see fat as a storage site. An energy reserve that is useful but also a problem to be managed.

But Dr. Wang’s study revealed something entirely different: in middle age, our visceral fat tissue is biologically active and almost strategic in how it expands. Her team discovered a new population of progenitor cells (CPAs) that only appear in visceral fat during midlife and rapidly create new fat cells, even without any changes in diet.

That’s not just a scientific footnote. That’s a new framework for understanding bodies in transition.

The Audio Segment

The segment aired as part of Science’s official podcast. You can listen to the episode here and I hope you do. Not just for the facts, but for the way the conversation unfolds.

🎧 Listen now: Dad Bods on Science Podcast

I left this interview thinking not just about fat biology, but about how much of our cultural understanding still lags behind the science.