14 DAY TRIAL // This calorie-burning fat is the key factor to losing weight and scientists are searching for a way of activating it in obese adults. As it turns out this might one day an alternative for surgical weight loss interventions.
Brown fat can be found in babies and, according to new studies, in some adults too. As babies' muscles are not developed enough for them to shiver brown fat is necessary at the beginning of their life. Brown fat cells raise their body temperature as soon as they feel a chill, keeping the baby warm.
In adults, activating brown fat triggers calorie burn and starts the weight loss process. In the past 10 years, several studies have shown where this fat is located, how it is stored and what activates it in keeping us warm. Some adults have brown fat generally between their shoulder blades, in the nook between the collarbone and shoulder and along the spine, on the side of their neck and in the upper back.
Thin people are more likely to have brown fat that regulates their body weight. Based on these observations, scientists say that if they succeed in boosting the growth of this fat, than they might come up with a way of fighting and reducing obesity. Tom E. Hughes, CEO of Zafgen, Inc., a biotechnology firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts ads that for these brown fat cells to torch calories, they need to be activated.
Usually, brown fat is activated by cold, as the body release adrenaline and thyroid hormones. Experts made an experiment to see if cold has the same effect on adults as in children. Researchers from the Maastricht University in the Netherlands, scanned 24 men, 14 of whom were overweight or obese, before and after they has sat in a chilly room for a couple of hours. Brown fat activity was noticed after the cold exposure, in all but one subject, who was obese.
Obese people were proven to have less active brown fat, according to study's senior author, Ronald Kahn, head of the section on obesity and hormone action at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston.
The calorie-burning fat looks brown because it contains a very large amount of mitochondria, small iron containing organelles inside cells. The high iron concentration gives the fat the brown-rusty color. Most body cells have smaller amounts of mitochondria. These cells convert energy from sugars into energy that can be used by the body.