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Lipedema: friend and foe.

Resource type
Authors/contributors
Title
Lipedema: friend and foe.
Abstract
Background Lipedema is a chronic disorder presenting in women during puberty or other times of hormonal change such as childbirth or menopause, characterized by symmetric enlargement of nodular, painful subcutaneous adipose tissue (fat) in the limbs, sparing the hands, feet and trunk. Healthcare providers underdiagnose or misdiagnose lipedema as obesity or lymphedema. Materials and methods The benefits (friend) and negative aspects (foe) of lipedema were collected from published literature, discussions with women with lipedema, and institutional review board approved evaluation of medical charts of 46 women with lipedema. Results Lipedema is a foe because lifestyle change does not reduce lipedema fat, the fat is painful, can become obese, causes gait and joint abnormalities, fatigue, lymphedema and psychosocial distress. Hypermobility associated with lipedema can exacerbate joint disease and aortic disease. In contrast, lipedema fat can be a friend as it is associated with relative reductions in obesity-related metabolic dysfunction. In new data collected, lipedema was associated with a low risk of diabetes (2%), dyslipidemia (11.7%) and hypertension (13%) despite an obese average body mass index (BMI) of 35.3 ± 1.7 kg/m2. Conclusion Lipedema is a painful psychologically distressing fat disorder, more foe than friend especially due to associated obesity and lymphedema. More controlled studies are needed to study the mechanisms and treatments for lipedema.
Publication
Hormone molecular biology and clinical investigation
Volume
33
Issue
1
Date
2018 Mar 9
Journal Abbr
Horm Mol Biol Clin Investig
Language
eng
ISSN
1868-1891 1868-1883 1868-1883
Lipedema Foundation Award
LF05
Citation
Torre, Y. S.-D. la, Wadeea, R., Rosas, V., & Herbst, K. L. (2018). Lipedema: friend and foe. Hormone Molecular Biology and Clinical Investigation, 33(1). https://doi.org/10.1515/hmbci-2017-0076
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