Brown Fat

Brown Fat Review:

Background

Science is always looking for a way to make weight loss easier and more efficient. Now researchers are being to unravel some interesting weight loss possibilities in the form of a little discussed type of fat, known as brown fat.

Brown fat is a curious type of fat that has a higher level of mitochondria activity than white fat. Normally brown fat in newborn infants can comprise as much as five percent of an infant’s overall body mass. This brown fat is located on the upper part of the back.

Infants use brown fat as a means of regulating their body heat. Of course, they lack the normal heat regulating mechanisms that adults possess. Additionally, infants can't move and add additional layers of clothing when it is cold. This is just one of the many reasons that infants need another mechanism for regulating their body heat and keeping warm. One of the ways that brown fat cells differ from white fat cells is that brown fat cells increase their activity when they become cold.

Why is brown fat is interesting and beginning to receive a good deal of attention from researchers? As humans age, the mitochondria powerhouse known as brown fat slowly begins to disappear. In time, this brown fat begins to look and behave more like white fat. This is not to state that adults do not have brown fat, as they do. In fact, surprisingly many adults retain significant amounts of brown fat in their body.

Researchers and scientists now believe that they may be able to use this knowledge of brown fat to develop new treatments for weight loss. One of the interesting discoveries that researchers have made recently is that obese people actually have less brown fat than lean people. However, this research is still in its early stages.