Brown fat tagged posts

Scientists from the University of Nottingham have discovered that drinking a cup of coffee can stimulate ‘brown fat’, the body’s own fat-fighting defenses, which could be the key to tackling obesity and diabetes.

The pioneering study, published today in the journal Scientific Reports, is one of the first to be carried out in humans to find components which could have a direct effect on ‘brown fat’ functions, an important part of the human body which plays a key role in how quickly we can burn calories as energy.

Brown adipose tissue (BAT), also known as brown fat, is one of two types of fat found in humans and other mammals...

Infrared images indicate the much warmer temperatures of a normal mouse (left) compared to a mouse unable to make ERR gamma (right). Credit: Salk Institute

A protein found in brown fat, but not typical white fat, is key to how the energy-burning brown fat cells function. While most fat cells in the human body store energy, everyone has a small subset of brown fat cells that do the opposite – burn energy and generate heat. Now, Salk researchers have discovered how the molecule ERRγ gives this “healthier” brown fat its energy-expending identity, making those cells ready to warm you up when you step into the cold, and potentially offering a new therapeutic target for diseases related to obesity.

“This not only advances our understanding of how the body responds to cold, but could lead to new...

Microneedle patch. Credit: Zhen Gu, UNC and NC State

Microneedle skin patch that delivers fat-shrinking drug locally could be used to treat obesity and diabetes. Researchers have devised a medicated skin patch that can turn energy-storing white fat into energy-burning brown fat locally while raising the body’s overall metabolism. White fat stores excess energy in large triglyceride droplets. Brown fat has smaller droplets and a high number of mitochondria that burn fat to produce heat. Newborns have a relative abundance of brown fat, which protects against exposure to cold temperatures. But by adulthood, most brown fat is lost.

For years, researchers have been searching for therapies that can transform an adult’s white fat into brown fat – browning – which can happen naturally when the bod...

Adipose tissue, with fat droplets in green and blood vessels in red. Credit: The laboratory of Zoltan Arany, MD, PhD, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

A signaling pathway in fat cells may one day provide the key to better treatments for obesity, according to new research by the Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Ordinary white adipocytes, stuff themselves with fat molecules to store up energy, and their overloading leads to obesity and related conditions, including diabetes. Brown adipocytes, which are prevalent in children as “baby fat,” but much less so in adults, do virtually the opposite: they burn energy rapidly to generate heat, and thereby protect the body from cold as well as obesity and diabetes.

About 36% of American adults are conside...