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News to me: seems fat is being considered an organ

In the anatomy textbooks, the major organs are easy to find. The liver is always brown, the spleen is green, the heart is red and the small intestine is squeezed like a row of sausages into the abdomen. But one of the principal organs, present in close to 50% of North American men and women, is missing. Fat. […] Many scientists now consider fat an endocrine organ, like the pancreas. […] The rush started in late 1994, when researchers at Rockefeller University discovered that fat cells secrete a hormone called leptin. Derived from the Greek word, “to thin,” leptin acts on the hypothalamus in the brain, where the hunger and satiety centres are located. It was the first time research had shown fat can control appetite. Fat deposits, it dawned on scientists, are really organs. “[Leptin] was the transformational discovery,” says Dr. Drucker. “The world realized fat is more of an active player than we previously appreciated.” Since the discovery of leptin, researchers have found dozens of molecules made by fat.