Inflammatory Adipose

Image found here. 

So I'm always looking something, anything, to deter me from scarfing enormous quantities of Christmas goodies, specifically fudge. Made by me. Hm. Maybe if I didn't make the fudge.........

Remember in driver's education classes when they showed the movie? The one that was supposed to deter us from drinking and driving? It worked for me. I can still see that awful footage of crumpled cars, and families sobbing, and blood dripping out of the driver's side of the vehicle. I have never gotten behind the wheel of a car after drinking alcohol. 

I need a movie or some other data that runs along that same premise, but substitutes eating sugar and dietary fat, for the drinking and driving thing.  

Today I came across this article,   The Role of Adipose Tissue Inflammation in the Etiology of Obesity and its Co - Morbidities  published by the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. It's well documented that adipose tissue, or fat, has the capability to create inflammation without assistance or stimulus from other tissues: 

Obesity is associated with a chronic low-grade systemic inflammation. A large number of studies have found that an increased body mass index correlates with increased plasma concentrations of inflammatory cytokines and acute phase proteins. This systemic inflammation is associated with insulin resistance leading to type 2 diabetes mellitus as well as increased risk of cardiovascular disease and certain types of cancer. Recent evidence suggests that this systemic inflammation is caused, at least in part, by adipose tissue. 

Now this is something to really think about. Of course this data is not suggesting that Sjogren's Syndrome is caused by obesity. However, the idea that every fat cell in my body is capable of adding to the inflammatory process already problematic in autoimmune disease is pretty darned repulsive. 

In this case, repulsive is good.