Beige fat tagged posts

Beige fat created from white fat by cold activation

Discovery could help fight obesity, metabolic disorders. Researchers have uncovered a new molecular pathway for stimulating the body to burn fat – a discovery that could help fight obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. A McGill University team focused on a protein, folliculin and its role in regulating the activity of fat cells. By knocking out the gene that produces folliculin in fat cells in mice, the researchers triggered a series of biomolecular signals that switched the cells from storing fat to burning it.

This process is known as the ‘browning’ of fat cells. Brown fat gets its colour from iron-rich mitochondria, an abundance of which is a sign that a cell is in metabolic overdrive...

Mild cold and exercise stimulate creation of “beige fat” in white adipose tissue

It triggers a surprising metabolic mechanism: white fat cells are transformed into cells similar to brown fat ( ‘beige fat’), that protects the body against excess weight and its damaging consequences. In healthy humans, white adipose tissue constitutes ~25% of body mass. However, when in excess, white fat contributes to insulin resistance and diabetes. Conversely, brown fat improves insulin sensitivity and is reversely correlated to obesity.

In response to cold or exercise, cells similar to brown fat – the beige fat – can appear within the white fat, a phenomenon known as “browning...

Highlights •CK2 is preferentially activated in white fat by norepinephrine and under obesity •CK2 inhibition in white fat activates thermogenesis in response to cAMP stimuli •CK2 inhibition increases UCP1-dependent energy expenditure in vivo •CK2 inhibition ameliorates diet-induced obesity and insulin resistance

Drugs that flip this switch rapidly reduced obesity and diabetes risk factors in mice fed a high fat diet. The results suggest that drugs capable of targeting similar molecular pathways in human fat cells could one day become major tools for fighting the growing worldwide epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes.

All mammals, including humans, have two types of fat with completely opposite functions: white, which stores energy and is linked with diabetes and obesity; and br...