Elena Gascón. PHOTO: Manuel Castells

Last September Elena Gascón received one of the awards of the competition 'Chair Tomás Pascual Sanz-University of Navarra' at the closing ceremony of the fifth promotion of this course of postgraduate program dependent on the School of Pharmacy, Human Nutrition and Dietetics of the University of Navarra. The dietician-nutritionist, a native of Huesca, was awarded 1,000 euros for her final work Master's Degree , graduate 'Analysis of changes in fat tissue during weight loss'. The jury highlighted the originality of the hypothesis, the efficient use of resources, the skill to handle applied techniques and the skill of the author in oral and written communication.

"My project was developed at the department of Human Biology, within the School of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences at Maastricht University. It was directed by Prof. Klaas Westerterp and Sanne Verhoef and had the partnership of Dr. Ansorena for the essay of it. The main goal was to study changes in adipocyte size before and after an eight-week treatment with a very low calorie per diem expenses (VLCD). The main hypothesis of the research was that changes in adipocyte size induced by a very low calorie per diem expenses in obese individuals are associated with substantial changes in body composition, weight loss and waist and hip diameters, and changes in body mass index," says the dietitian.

"For this purpose, biopsies of subcutaneous adipose tissue were taken from the abdominal area before and after treatment. The size of the adipocytes was determined by computer image analysis. A total of 41 subjects were included, of which 16 were biopsied. In addition to analyzing the changes in the adipocytes, we studied how some anthropometric variables (body weight, waist diameter, hip diameter and percentage of body fat) varied, and we tested two techniques for fixing and embedding the tissue (using either plastic or kerosene)," explains Gascón.

Among the conclusions drawn from project, the following were highlighted:
1. Adipocyte size tends to be smaller after treatment with a very low calorie per diem expenses for 8 weeks, however, this needs to be confirmed in a larger issue of subjects.
2. The 8-week intervention with a very low calorie per diem expenses significantly reduces body weight, waist circumference, hip circumference and body fat percentage.
3.There is a strong correlation between weight loss and waist loss and weight loss and body fat percentage.
4. There is a moderate association between weight loss and reduction in hip circumference, as well as between decrease in fat percentage and decrease in waist circumference.
5. Regarding the two fixation techniques analyzed in this study for image analysis, both methods were similar in terms of area and adipocyte diameter. However,
statistically significant differences were found in the issue of adipocytes per square millimeter. However, these results need to be confirmed in a larger issue of samples.

Finally, Elena Gascón emphasizes that "this project is part of a larger project in which we want to study the differences in weight regain in subjects with a high, leave or average predisposition Genetics in terms of body composition, expense energy, physical activity and adipogenic capacity".