LOSE WEIGHT, GET MORE BROWN FAT CELLS

LOSE WEIGHT, CHANGE YOUR WHITE FAT CELLS TO BROWN FAT CELLS

Not all fat cells work alike.  The brown fat cells break down fatty acids to make heat.  The more brown cells we have, the thinner we will be.

Whit fat cells are the major energy storage house in mammals .  Triglycerides breakdown are used as fuel for muscle and other tissues.  When obesity sets in, we have more white cells than we can handle.  It can be under the skin or over the organs.(visceral fat).  The secretions from visceral fat must go to the liver before they can get into the circulation.  It is the cause of type2 diabetes and insulin resistance. 

 

What about brown fat?  It oxidizes the fatty acids in the trigylceride breakdown to make heat.  It has more mitocondria and many small lipid droplets.  White fat cells only have a single big lipid dropltet.  At birth we have more brown fat than as adults.  It is almost impossible to locate brown fat cells in an adult.

Brown and white fat cells look different and have different functions, even though they come from a common precursor cell.  A transcription factor is needed to make both white and brown fat cell.  When white cells get stimulated our  hormones get released.  This occurs when our blood sugar is low or we are under stress.

If we could expand the brown fat compartments, we would use up more energy and could lose weight.  The activator of  transcription factor in a protein, PRDM16.  Brown fat cells come from a cell that makes skeletal muscle.  Brown fat cells have many features of skeletal muscle.  The metabolism of brown fat cell metabolize like skeletal muscle.  Unlike white fat cells, brown fat cells  have the same color and mitochondrial content as skeletal muscle. Brown fat cells have also recently been found in skeletal muscle. 

Do  brown fat cells that are in white fat cell body deposits function differently? We all know that obesity is harmful to our health and is today an epidemic.

When we find out the origin of the brown fat cells will we be able to treat obesity  These new developments may benefit our obese society.

Sources: Science, August 22, 2008, Lazar,

                  Seale, Nature 454, 961 (2008)

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