Brown fat tagged posts

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...

Rutin (rutoside, sophorin) molecule

Good news for those who want to activate their brown fat (or BAT, brown adipose tissue) without having to be cold: New research, published in The FASEB Journal, suggests that a natural compound in mulberries, called “rutin,” can activate the BAT in our bodies to increase metabolism and facilitate weight loss.

“The beneficial effects of rutin on BAT-mediated metabolic improvement have evoked a substantial interest in the potential treatment for obesity and its related diseases, such as diabetes,” said Wan-Zhu Jin, Ph.D. “In line with this idea, discovery of more safe and effective BAT activators is desired to deal with obesity and its related diseases.”

To make their discovery, Jin and colleagues used both genetically obese mice and mice with diet-induced...

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...