Brown Fat Will Cure Obesity?

A new study in the New England Journal of medicine indicated that leaner people have more brown fat deposits in their body than obese people. What is brown fat? Common to newborn babies, it is a type of fat that has increased mitochondria in it (lending to the name) that has the primary job of maintaining the body temperature.

Brown fat burns high quantities of sugar in order to release heat to the body and research is indicating that this browner fat may be a useful way to help people lose weight. The trick is finding the best way to activate the fat, especially since it typically lies dormant and shrinks as we age and learn to regulate our body temperatures.

A doctor at the University of Sweden says that healthy humans have high levels of browner fat stored in the front and back of the neck. These areas often show up as hot spots on PET scans routinely looking for cancer but are nothing more than fat deposits.

When another researcher published his study in the New England Journal of Medicine that browner fat was activated by immersing patients feet in ice water, the brown fat was activated to burn sugar and calories in the body. Could this be the boost in the metabolism we need to lose weight?

While scientists find that 50 grams of brown fat could burn about 20% of a person’s total caloric intake they still are not sure how to activate the fat effectively to help people lose weight. Evidence suggests that even if scientists could develop a drug to boost browner fat sugar burning, it may be harmful to the person since the majority of the people with high levels of browner fat are those with cancer or hypothyroidism. For now, the jury is still out but the future may include some sort of brown fat burning induction that will revolutionize the way we work out.