In the largest study of its kind to date, Cambridge researchers have looked at why some people manage to stay thin while others gain weight easily. They have found that the genetic dice are loaded in favour of thin people and against those at the obese end of the spectrum. More than six in ten … Read more
Obesity is a disease where people accumulate more and more fat. When they reach a certain point, their fat stops working and they develop disease, such as type 2 diabetes. But not all fat is bad. The fat that accumulates in obesity is called white fat, but a second form of fat (brown fat) could … Read more
Our bodies contain two types of fat: white fat and brown fat. While white fat stores calories, brown fat burns energy and could help us lose weight. Now, scientists at the University of Cambridge have found a way of making the white fat ‘browner’ and increasing the efficiency of brown fat. While their study was … Read more
Researchers from Germany and Finland have shown that so-called “brown fat” interacts with the gut hormone secretin in mice to relay nutritional signals about fullness to the brain during a meal. The study, appearing November 15 in the journal Cell, bolsters our understanding of a long-suspected role of brown adipose tissue (BAT) — a type … Read more
A team of researchers, led by Professor Jan-Wilhelm Kornfeld from the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Southern Denmark, Elena Schmidt from the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research, Cologne, Germany and Martin Bilban from the Medial University, Vienna, Austria, have made a groundbreaking discovery in obesity research. The team has discovered a … Read more
Bioengineers develop a simple tissue-grafting approach to increase brown fat mass in the body and study its effect on metabolism and weight Brown fat tissue in the body can burn enormous amounts of energy to generate heat, and studies in humans and animals have suggested that increasing the amount of healthy brown fat might help … Read more
A newly published study by researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine has identified a potential therapeutic target for treating obesity and diabetes. The scientists studied the biological function of an epigenetic modifier known as histone deacetylase 11 (HDAC11), and determined that deleting it in mice stimulates the formation of brown adipose tissue. … Read more
Researchers open the door to potential new therapies for certain metabolic and muscular diseases Abundant in human babies and small mammals, brown adipose tissue (BAT), or brown fat, was only recently discovered in human adults, and its role remains unclear. Known to play an integral part in generating body heat and burning stored energy, its … Read more
The importance of the human brown adipose tissue (BAT) has become clearer during the past ten years. Using positron emission tomography, PET, it was shown that adult humans have functional BAT. Coldness is an effective activator of the BAT metabolic function but, in rodents, eating has the same effect. Now, the researchers at Turku PET … Read more
A new technique to study fat stores in the body could aid efforts to find treatments to tackle obesity. The approach focuses on energy-burning tissues found deep inside the body — called brown fat — that help to keep us warm when temperatures drop. Experts are aiming to find if this calorie-burning power can be … Read more