Adipose tissue: The renaissance marked by four paradigm shifts

One of the biggest recent achievements in the study of cardio- metabolic diseases (atherosclerosis, hypertension, obesity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, metabolic syndrome, and Alzheimer’s disease, which is recently viewed as type 3 diabetes, see below) is associated with the ”rediscovery” of a neglected tissue, the adipose tissue. Here we will Dance Round four paradigm shifts in the study of adipose tissue. In 1962, Thomas S. Kuhn published his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1st edition, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, USA). Its publication was a landmark event in the history and philosophy of scientific knowledge (epistemology). Kuhn challenged the prevailing view of “normal science” which DANCE ROUND We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows. Robert Frost was viewed as “development-by-accumulation” of accepted facts and concepts leading - most often - to epistemological paralysis, we dubbed it neophobia (the term also used for children above the age of 1 year). Kuhn argued for a model in which a period of such conceptual continuity in normal science were interrupted by a period of revolutionary science leading to a new paradigm, an event he designated paradigm shift. At epistemological level, the adipose tissue has undergone four major paradigm shifts in last 20 years, which “upregulated” it above the horizon. Consequently, adipose tissue takes center stage in so many diseases that it leaves most scientists and medical doctors astonished.