Popular in paleo and low-carb communities is the goal of becoming a "fat burner," or having access to adipocyte-stored fat released as free fatty acids for energy. This has been shown anecdotally and clinically to be an effective weight loss strategy, but there are disease implications concerning this metabolic state and it's use for weight loss. I will present my research and that of others showing PUFA and other fatty acids relation to obesity, type II diabetes and overall metabolism. Research challenging sugars as a cause of obesity will also be presented. The state of lipolysis and free fatty acid use, and the physiological changes that go along with it, will be compared to disease states. PUFA specifically, and other fatty acids generally, contribute to degenerative disease at several levels, and I will make the case that being a fat-burner in the low carb sense is necessarily accompanied by physiological changes both that mimic and cause disease at the cellular and organismal levels.
