Brown Fat: The new weight loss breakthrough?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I have become generally desensitized to "breakthroughs" in weight loss methods. One possibility that seems to consistently manifest itself amongst the other noise has been the research on brown fat (brown adipose tissue, or BAT). It has been enough to make me pay closer attention - here's why.

In short, a recent study is showing that spending time in the cold can favorably alter our metabolic capabilities by increasing BAT.

What is brown adipose tissue (BAT)?

BAT is a specialized type of fat predominant in newborn and hibernating mammals. It is dense with blood supply and mitochondria (powerhouses of the cell) and hence has a brown-ish color.

It is physiologically important and of special interest in weight loss due to its increase in activity in response to cold.

The new research is important because it confirms that adults have brown fat involved in temperature regulation, while also probably playing a role in whether a person is lean or overweight"

said Jan Nedergaard, a professor at the Wenner-Gren Institute at the University of Stockholm in Sweden.

While scientists have known about brown fat and what it does for decades, it's been nearly impossible to study it in live humans until very recently. Finding it in people's bodies meant taking tissue samples, so scientists mostly stuck to studying it in lab animals. (Side note: I remember learning about BAT in exercise physiology class almost 15 years ago. My prof. was excited about the possibilities of it even back then).

In the new New England Journal of Medicine reports, three independent research teams have confirmed that this is the case, indeed, and that integrated positron-emission tomography and computed tomography (PET-CT) scans can be used not only to identify it but to measure its metabolic activity.

Summary of PET-CT Scan Findings

• Cypess and his colleagues reviewed 3,640 PET-CT scans. Among women, 7.5 percent had patches of brown fat that were more than 4 millimeters in diameter, while 3.1 percent of men had similar patches.
• Cypess and his team also found that people whose scans were done in the winter had the most brown fat, while those scanned in the summer had the least; people who underwent the tests in the spring or fall fell in the middle.
• In another study, Dutch researchers looked at how temperature affected brown fat activity in 24 healthy men, also using PET-CT. When the volunteers sat in a room kept at 72° F for two hours, none of their scans showed brown fat activity. But when they were exposed to slightly chillier conditions -- about 61° F -- 23 showed brown fat activity. The 10 men who were lean (with body mass indexes of less than 25) had more brown fat than the 14 who were overweight or obese, and their brown fat was also more active.

A new way to treat obesity?

I think this can go one of 3 ways: 1 positive, 1 negative and one in the middle. On the positive side of the ledger, this may give us another weapon in terms of "keeping cool" to keep our BAT's active.

On the negative side, I fear that pharmaceutical giants will create drugs to increase BAT- which will only help fuel an already ubiquitous quick-fix mentality. Plus, there are always side-effects to drugs both natural and synthetic.

The third possibility is that the BAT theory may not pan out at all and we will be "stuck" at square 1 - exercise and healthy eating!

No matter what happens, nothing will replace the requirement of healthy eating and exercise to lose body fat. It would simply be a complementary intervention.

Stay tuned, though as the research is getting interesting. Same BAT time, same BAT channel.