Recently published studies suggest that each of us has a sort of body fat that uses calories by simply reducing your body temperature.
We are born with brown adipose tissue (known as brown fat), the purpose of which is to help babies and young children maintain temperature by burning calories.
This process is brought about by lowering body temperature. It was thought that adults lose most of their brown fat but this new research suggests that some brown fat might be retained by all.
According to the American research (published in the New England Journal of Medicine), there may be an exciting and previously unknown way to deal with obesity. While every anti-obesity drug currently available aims at reducing calorie intake, it is thought that new drugs might stimulate brown fat activity and faster calories burning.
A Swedish study confirms that brown fat does have a part to play in the regulation of body temperature, and that it might have a part to play in a person being fat or thin. In the matter of whether we store the food we eat or burn it away, brown fat can be a very significant factor. A Dutch study found that a majority of men, showed increased brown fat activity in cool conditions.
In addition, a majority of men who were overweight or obese showed reduced brown fat activity than lean men. A second Swedish study found that, in cold conditions, the amount of glucose consumed by the participants’ brown fat was higher by a factor of 15.
Brown fat has been known about for years, but human study was difficult since it involved tissue sampling. Most research was restricted to animals in the lab. However, specialist techniques noted deposits of tissue appearing to consume energy located toward the top of upper body. Integrated PET-CT scans have confirmed that this tissue to be brown fat they were looking for, and have measured its metabolic action.
It turns out that not all people with brown fat were the same – some tended to be younger and leaner. Older people, those using beta blockers, and the obese had a reduced likelihood of having brown fat.
It was also discovered that people scanned in the winter had more brown fat than those scanned in the summer had the least, and those tested at other times fell in the middle. There is a gender difference, too – over 7% of women had patches of brown fat, compared to about 3% of men.
It has been commented that there might be a naturalistic method to stimulate fat reduction – reduce body temperature and use calories, and save the planet at the same time.
While this is clearly oversimplified, the idea that brown fat can be useful is powerful and suggests possible for anti-obesity treatments and environmentally based health promotion. This does not mean that people should try to lose weight without healthy eating and increasing activity.
The amount of additional energy that can be burnt is small, and replaced very easily by just a little extra food. So standing out in the cold is not likely to be a satisfactory way of losing weight.
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