"Adipose tissue is an extramedullary reservoir for functional hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells." Got that? No? Here's the simple translation: we now think blood can be made in the fat tissue, not just the bone marrow.

This is just coming out in Blood, a journal I keep up with as a hematologist.

For a blood doctor, this news is fairly mindblowing. We in hematology have this dogma that the blood is made in the marrow, and the presence of "functional hematopoietic stem cells" in the fat implies that at least some of the blood is made in adipose tissue.

Consider the 341,000 liposuction procedures done in 2008 (http://www.yourplasticsurgeryguide.com/trends/charts-graphs-2008.htm). Is this procedure removing functional blood production? Mindboggling.

http://bloodjournal.hematologylibrary.org/cgi/content/abstract/blood-200...