Fat Gets Old Fast

Just in case you were looking for another reason not to be fat, the Washington Post reports that scientists have determined that fat accelerates aging, possibly speeding the unraveling of crucial genetic structures inside cells that wither with age.  According to the story, researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey studied 1,122 women ages 18 to 76. The researchers examined structures in white blood cells called telomeres, which shorten, as part of the aging process, every time a cell divides. Lean women had significantly longer telomeres than the heavy women, whose telomeres were significantly longer than those of the obese women. The findings suggest that many health problems associated with being overweight — heart disease, cancer, diabetes, arthritis — may result from fat cells hastening the natural aging process. And that’s the long and short of it.