I just noticed I typed "they just doesn't". I think my brain has already been pickled...

But is absolutely true.

And then Moby turned it into a song, and then it really was retarded.

That's a myth. Fat cells grow and shrink, but they don't die in this fashion. They do die, but they tend to be replaced periodically like all other cells in the body. But for the most part, they tend to be pretty long lived. Close, but not quite. Most cells are relatively short lived, from epithelial cells which have lives measured in days to neurons that easily span multiple decades. Most people will die with more or less the same complement of brain cells they had at age 5. And few people will have a completely replaced brain, if that ever happens in anybody.
BTW, I just breathed in some atoms that Hitler breathed out.

It depends who you are.

Proof that science advice will never be found on gaming forums.

I was hoping you'd reply.

I was discussing a weight loss program I've started with a coworker during lunch, and he vehemently claimed that fat cells did not die. Existing fat cells would simply absorb fat until limited by themselves or the surroundings, and then the body would create new fat cells to absorb further fat. The cells expand and shrink according to "demand", but never die.

I then asked him if he thought that when he died, the fat cells stayed behind. He claimed that the only time fat cells could actually die, was when the host body itself died and thus removed the cells access to the factors that give the cell life.

I had problems with this explanation, but when I looked up the wikipedia entry for this, I read the following: "After marked weight loss, the number of fat cells does not decrease (the cells contain less fat). Fat cells swell or shrink but remain constant in number. However, the number of fat cells may increase once existing fat cells are sufficiently full".

It was late, and I never read further, but found this claim to be strange. So where better to ask than on gog.com.

I also thought that one of the reasons obese people tend to have weaker immune systems is that their immune system is already partially busy cleaning up all the extra dead cells, including fat cells.

Of course they can die, like it was posted above me :) The problem is, they you keep a relatively stable number of them, When you gain weight (this works especially for obese kids) and fat cells start getting too large, they start to divide and their number increases. But again... this new higher number of cells is relatively stable and no matter how much you lose weight, you will still have them there (they'lljust get smaller). That's why it's so difficult to lose weight once you have it and why it keeps coming back :)

While there are quite a few conditions that are associated with obesity (co-morbidity), I'm not aware of decreased immune response being one of these. When adipocytes accumulate as many lipids as they can hold this does trigger the generation of additional adipocytes, but as far as I'm aware it doesn't affect the fractional turnover of these cells. Additionally, cells undergoing apoptosis (programmed cell death) doesn't put much strain on the immune system, as cells going through apoptosis basically put all of their affairs in order, then send of a message to the immune system to send in a few phagocytes to clean up what little unfinished business remains. Necrosis (cell death due to external factors such as toxics or trauma) is an entirely different matter, but as far as I'm aware necrosis isn't a co-morbidity connected to obesity.