Abstract

VASQUEZ-REVILLA, Héctor Romeo  and  REVILLA-RODRIGUEZ, Eduardo. Adipose tissue during critical illness and the obesity paradox. Med. crít. (Col. Mex. Med. Crít.) [online]. 2017, vol.31, n.1, pp.36-41. ISSN 2448-8909.

The term «obesity paradox» refers to the observations made in several clinical studies where a protective effect of obesity is demonstrated when it presents in the course of a critical illness. There are physiological bases that could explain this benefit, related to the metabolic activity and cellular changes that adipose tissue presents in critically ill patients with obesity. However, there is controversy as to whether changes are protective or only an adaptive response to the disease; it has been argued that there are factors that could contribute to have a wrong perception of this phenomenon, such as poor choice of the study design, a lack of scales to assess the severity in obese patients, nonspecific anthropometric measurements, among others. The aim of this paper is to review the available information on the role of adipose tissue during critical illness and obese patients in the ICU.

Keywords : Adipose tissue; obesity; critical illness; ICU.

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