Is lipedema hereditary?

By Tatjana van der Krabben

Is lipedema hereditary? Interesting question. For starters, that is not proven. Yet? Another interesting question. If you ask me to speculate I wouldn’t go with hereditary full stop. And here is why.

Despite it often being quoted, lipedema is not a proven hereditary or genetic condition. Read the fine print; papers mostly say something like ‘possibly hereditary’ or ‘in part’. With family members displaying symptoms, one generation after another, going against the hypothesis of it being hereditary seems rather futile. Also, I can hear you gritting your teeth from here: “Is she implying I brought this on myself?!” Rest assured, I’m doing no such thing. But here’s some food for thought.

Regarding lipedema there are many assumptions going around. About percentages and numbers of women having it. Mostly 1 in 10 or 1 in 11 is mentioned to state the urgency of the matter. Sometimes in relation to a country or continent or even the world. Again, not proven. Worse, that’s just one estimate. Child et al (2009) came up with a minimum estimate of prevalence of 1 in 72.000. Those estimates are worlds apart. In a recent lecture dr. Damstra, a Dutch specialist, mentioned its occurrence in Asia is genuinely rare. So 1 in 10 in the world can’t be right. 1 in 72.000 sounds way to conservative to me; on an average summer day on a beach or in a theme park I encounter several ladies with lipedema. My point? Keep an open mind!

Am I playing it down? No. I believe the matter is actually getting more urgent. This is why. I’m coming from observation and am just hypothesizing, but the generation before me usually didn’t experience serious issues until menopause or a hysterectomy, often despite multiple pregnancies. As in, of course in retrospect there were some signs before, but their functioning was hindered only so much until then. My generation mblmmmb (read: forty-ish) experienced undeniable symptoms when pregnant. I now see girls still in their teens with stage 3. I also hear of more and more men getting diagnosed.

My generation did without junk food to mention of until our twenties. Soda bottles were made of glass until I was fifteen-ish and snacks and treats were limited to weekends and parties. I feel like we are the transitional generation in this picture. Of course in part this is the same debate as with autism and ADD etc.; is it getting more common or are more people seeking and getting help/diagnosis? No doubt more people seeking medical help has something to do with it. Something, but not all. I honestly see lipedema getting worse faster and faster.

Fact: the population as a whole is getting bigger. Fact: we get less exercise then we did in my grandmother’s day. Fact: our diet has changed tremendously from seasonally limited options and whole foods to mostly processed supermarket ‘food’. And here’s the thing we all know: let the average girl switch to granny’s whole foods and some exercise and her fat will melt away and with us not so much. Well, definitely not all of it. Also, we tend to gain faster eating the same type of food in the same portions. So, I’m leaning towards part circumstance and part predisposition. That would also explain how some manage to get virtually symptom-free by changing their lifestyle. If it’s genetics only, that would be rather strange, to say the least.

I’m not pulling a rabbit out of a hat here. Several researchers are hypothesizing along the same lines. This theory is telling me two things:

1. We run the risk of having an explosion of lipedema with young teens taking birth control already, supermarkets being the main food source for most which offers little whole foods and the increased digestion of xeno and phyto estrogens.
2. There’s a point to looking at circumstance and lifestyle. Change for the better what you can. Reduce inflammation, keep moving. Many are already travelling down that road with (some) success.

So, no, you are not to blame for developing lipedema. We all get caught by surprise, but please stay pro-active. It’s about quality of life. We all want it to be the best it can be. Right?

Yvonne van Stigt researches how to defeat lipedema

By Tatjana van der Krabben

October 2012 I attended a conference on lipedema. A very energetic lady delivered a lecture with a fellow researcher. I struggled to follow her on the topic of the leaky gut – then an only vaguely familiar concept to me. She got me when she mentioned low-grade inflammation related to lipedema. Bam! Yes, everyone, less than a year ago that was still news and at Lipese we were searching high and low for more information on the subject. And there was Yvonne van Stigt, not only on board with that, but also touching upon a sore point as how to fight the inflammation: with food - our enemy, our Nemesis. Van Stigt is a Paleo advocate, but a change of diet is only part of what she has to say. I recently had the honor of interviewing her on her views and plans.

Van Stigt has firsthand experience with lipedema
Yvonne van Stigt, specialized in clinical psycho neuro immunology, has an interesting history. She had, as she puts it, lipedema and started to study clinical psycho neuro immunology to help heal herself, as she couldn’t find the help she felt she needed in the traditional medical field. Unfortunately, her claim to have healed from lipedema sometimes yields adverse reactions. It is, however, not as controversial as it seems. She is currently free of symptoms. She described her legs as pain-free, no longer swollen, of a more modest size, but hardly perfect. Being symptom-free does not equal killer legs, unfortunately. I’ve met others coming pretty darn close to being free of symptoms. So her claim doesn’t offend me. More so, I find it inspirational.

Clinical psycho neuro immunology
Clinical psycho neuro immunology is described by Van Stigt as ‘system thinking’. Finding a correlation does not suffice: clinical psycho neuro immunology seeks to understand the underlying processes. When you hear her string her theories it’s like listening to someone describing domino chain reactions, one stone after the other going, coming full circle in the end.

When treating patients she lets them fill out a questionnaire first. During the initial session she observes people and goes over the questionnaire. She provides them with a set of rules regarding diet and exercise. Generally, the younger people change their habits, the faster and the better the result. In case of persisting health issues there may be (some) irreversible damage. She also says 75% can be sufficiently helped with these guidelines only. About 25 percent needs additional tests. A blood test seems like the next step, but Van Stigt isn’t necessarily keen on standard blood tests. “For instance: just because the blood has high levels of a vitamin, doesn’t mean there is no shortage on a cellular level. A blood test doesn’t tell that.” Instead, Van Stigt also uses urine tests or, when testing blood, zooms in on the red blood cell.

Thinking outside the box
Although she continuously speaks of causes for lipedema and doing something about it, she acknowledges it’s genetic. “A good genetic package would have left you with a solid foundation of muscle, naturally capable of burning fat. When you have lipedema, you lack these genetic benefits, making it challenging to burn fat.”

She doesn’t believe it’s hormones only. Like many of us already experienced, the early onset can predate puberty. Van Stigt identifies three triggers: stress, hormones and the immune system. Which one will tip you over the edge and will bring on obvious lipedema signs, is personal. Which triggers will continue to haunt you with symptoms is personal as well. This rules out a standard approach for each and all. “After the balance is gone and your poor genetic package is becoming a factor, your body reacts with a survival strategy,” explains Van Stigt. “This could be, for instance, diabetes, fibromyalgia or lipedema.” Lipedema here qualifies as a survival strategy, because the body is looking for a way to cope with the lack of balance. In case of lipedema, the body has issues disposing of toxicity. The lymph shutting down is a strategy of the body to prevent toxins from reaching vital organs via the lymph circulation, but it shutting down also hinders the disposing of the toxins. This also explains why, when reducing toxicity levels, the lymph start to function better, unlike for those with lymphedema. Technically, the lymph can do the job, provided it hasn’t gotten damaged over time.

As for treatment, Van Stigt works closely with a gynecologist who tests hormone levels. Bio-identical hormones are recommended when deficiencies turn up. To state the obvious: that would not be a deficiency of estrogen. Mostly, in case of lipedema, there’s estrogen dominance. As for the immune system – it’s often under pressure because of a poor diet. “Modern eating habits are poor eating habits by definition”, she says. Van Stigt, being a Paleo advocate, does sympathize with those dreading the transition to a different lifestyle, although she wouldn’t want it any other way for herself, knowing the consequences. “Commonly it takes 7-10 days to adjust to the changes. After that, you already start experiencing the benefits, which usually acts as a great incentive.”

Although not focusing exclusively on lipedema, it’s obvious she’s passionate when it comes to fighting this condition. She now has her heart set on a 10 day therapeutic retreat for lipedema patients coming winter. Van Stigt wants to give people all the tools and help them to learn to eat differently, safely start up with special exercise and stimulate the lymph through osteopathy, among other. She’s eager to prove that’s all it takes to get properly started with the rest of a better, more comfortable life.

I was jumping on my seat when I found out. I can’t make it on this trip, but someone out there wants to do something that could be the closest thing to a clinical trial that we currently have regarding lipedema, exercise and diet. To be continued!

Obviously, I’ve given a very brief and incomplete description of Yvonne van Stigt’s work. Her new book, which will describe her theories and findings regarding lipedema in great detail, is due mid-November in the Netherlands. An English translation will follow. I’ll keep you posted.