Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The essential components of food are proteins, fats and fuels. In this paper, we will analyze one of the main macronutrients: fats, also called lipids.First, dietary lipids are indeed exceptional sources of energy. In some organs, particularly the liver, heart and resting striated muscle, more than half of the energy required is supplied by triacylglycerols.An essential particularity of the energy value of fats lies in the fact that they represent stores of energy substrates. Thanks to nutrition, funds (deposits) of energy resources accumulate in the body, which will be needed later.In an adult's body, lipid reserves perform the same three basic functions: energy, thermal insulation, and defense against injury. The last two functions derive from the notion of "indispensable components of rational nutrition". At the same time, nutrition ensures, in interaction, many other aspects of the vital activity of living organisms.Another function of subcutaneous fat reserves is somewhat forgotten, even if it is constantly perceived visually. It is about "softening the sharp corners" of the skeleton, which gives the body a fine roundness: the aesthetic function of the subcutaneous adipose tissue. It is often observed in performance sports that athletes have aesthetically unacceptable silhouettes with prominent anatomical contours of the bones.In special living conditions, the priority function of reserve subcutaneous lipids becomes that of thermal insulation. It is about environments with low temperatures, being temporarily or permanently in an aquatic environment, etc. The vital activity of aquatic and semi-aquatic mammals directly depends on the existence of the subcutaneous adipose layer of thermal insulation [4].
Author: Veaceslav MANOLACHI
Language: English
Subfield: Cell Biology
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4416617775
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