Adipocyte size redux

Adipocyte sizing methods have been extensively compared with each other since the late 60’s (1–3) and multiple measures of adipocyte size were established to be associated with metabolic risk (4). Laforest and colleagues (5) address a related and important issue: which method best predicts metabolic risk. They found fairly good correlations among the three commonly used cell sizing methods (collagenase-isolated cells, histological tissue sections and electronic (Multisizer®) sizing of osmium-fixed adipocytes), yet intriguingly found that the median adipocyte size measured by electronic counting of osmium-fixed cells best correlated with measures of glucose homeostasis, lipid profiles, and circulating adipokine levels. Beyond the advantages/disadvantages of each method (4,5), these new findings bring up several issues that merit wider discussion.