Weight gain and adipose tissue metabolism after smoking cessation in women

BACKGROUND: Cigarette smoking increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, and is an important preventable cause of death and illness. One major dete rrent to smoking cessation is a gain in body weight. Understanding the mech anisms that contribute to this weight gain may maximize the success of long -term smoking cessation. We hypothesized that smoking cessation is associat ed with an increase in adipose tissue lipoprotein lipase (AT-LPL) activity and/or a decrease in lipolysis, two metabolic factors that determine the ba lance between fat storage and fat utilization, and thus affect the propensi ty for weight gain. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Ten premenopausal women (37.1 +/- 6.2 y, 31.7 +/- 6. 4 kg/m(2) body mass index (BMI), mean +/- s.d.) participated in a 4 week sm oking cessation program. Measurements of body weight, waist and hip circumf erences, adipose cell metabolism and resting metabolic rate were obtained a t baseline and after 4 weeks of smoking cessation. RESULTS: Of the 10 women who began the intervention, five successfully comp leted the smoking cessation intervention. After 4 weeks of smoking cessatio n, there were significant increases in body weight (95.1 +/- 13.9-97.7 +/- 14.4 kg, P < 0.05), with no change in waist and hip circumferences or resti ng energy expenditure. Gluteal AT-LPL activity significantly increased in a ll women by 2.8-fold (1.65 +/- 1.30-4.72 +/- 3.34 nmol/g/min, P < 0.05). Ab dominal AT-LPL activity increased in four out of the five women, but did no t reach statistical significance (1.14 +/- 0.88-3.50 +/- 3.76 nmol/g/min, P = 0.14). The increase in body weight correlated with the increase in glute al AT-LPL activity (r = 0.89, P < 0.05), as well as the baseline activity o f gluteal AT-LPL (r = 0.86, P = 0.06). There were no changes in basal or st imulated lipolysis in the gluteal or abdominal fat depots. CONCLUSIONS: These results suggest that smoking cessation is associated wit h significant increases in body weight, as well as changes in adipose cell metabolism, in particular increases in AT-LPL activity. This increase in LP L activity may contribute to the increase in body weight associated with sm oking cessation.