Exposure to cold temperature may help fight obesity by turning bad fat to good fat
Popular
weight loss methods include reducing food intake and engaging in
physical activities but findings of a new study suggest that exposure to
cold temperature can also be beneficial for individuals who want to
lose weight.
For a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism on Oct. 9, Philip Kern, from the University of Kentucky School of Medicine, and colleagues compared the belly fat of 55 people collected during summer and winter. They also assessed the thigh fat of 16 individuals after they placed an ice pack on their skin for half an hour.
Brown fat, which is also called as brown adipose tissue, or BAT, is a fat tissue which burns glucose and energy in order to produce heat. Small animals and even infants depend on brown fat to keep themselves warm. However, for adults, most fat deposits are called white fat or white adipose tissue (WAT).
While brown fat can burn calories, white fat stores energy but the latter may also help in burning calories when it takes some of the characteristics of brown fat. The tissue produced in this process is known as the "beige fat." In studies involving rodents, the animals that were exposed to cold temperatures can transform deposits of white fat into beige fat.
"We wanted to investigate whether human adults had the ability to transform some white fat deposits into beige fat when they were exposed to cold," Kern said, adding that browning fat tissue could be an excellent means of battling obesity, a condition that affects nearly 35 percent of American adults and is associated with a number of diseases include type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure as it could help the body burn more calories instead of storing them as additional fat tissue.
The researchers found that the belly fat taken during winter contained higher levels of two genetic markers for brown fat than that taken during summer. Kern and colleagues have likewise noted that thigh fat collected after people placed an ice pack on their skin also contained higher levels of three genetic markers associated with brown fat.
"Human sc WAT increases thermogenic genes seasonally and acutely in response to a cold stimulus and this response is inhibited by obesity and inflammation," the researchers wrote.
Kern and colleagues, however, found that obesity and inflammation can hinder the conversion of white fat to beige fat.
For a new study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism on Oct. 9, Philip Kern, from the University of Kentucky School of Medicine, and colleagues compared the belly fat of 55 people collected during summer and winter. They also assessed the thigh fat of 16 individuals after they placed an ice pack on their skin for half an hour.
Brown fat, which is also called as brown adipose tissue, or BAT, is a fat tissue which burns glucose and energy in order to produce heat. Small animals and even infants depend on brown fat to keep themselves warm. However, for adults, most fat deposits are called white fat or white adipose tissue (WAT).
While brown fat can burn calories, white fat stores energy but the latter may also help in burning calories when it takes some of the characteristics of brown fat. The tissue produced in this process is known as the "beige fat." In studies involving rodents, the animals that were exposed to cold temperatures can transform deposits of white fat into beige fat.
"We wanted to investigate whether human adults had the ability to transform some white fat deposits into beige fat when they were exposed to cold," Kern said, adding that browning fat tissue could be an excellent means of battling obesity, a condition that affects nearly 35 percent of American adults and is associated with a number of diseases include type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure as it could help the body burn more calories instead of storing them as additional fat tissue.
The researchers found that the belly fat taken during winter contained higher levels of two genetic markers for brown fat than that taken during summer. Kern and colleagues have likewise noted that thigh fat collected after people placed an ice pack on their skin also contained higher levels of three genetic markers associated with brown fat.
"Human sc WAT increases thermogenic genes seasonally and acutely in response to a cold stimulus and this response is inhibited by obesity and inflammation," the researchers wrote.
Kern and colleagues, however, found that obesity and inflammation can hinder the conversion of white fat to beige fat.
Labels: brown fat/ brown adipose tissue (BAT), burn calories, cold temperature, exposure, glucose, help fight, obesity, white fat/ white adipose tissue(WAT)
posted by G S Iyer at 7:59 AM
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