Yes, it’s every dieters dream, a way to burn fat without the hard work. Researchers have found a way to activate “beige” fat cells that produce heat and therefore expend energy without the need to stimulate them by making them cold.
You have within you 3 types of fat cells, white, brown and beige. White is the normal fat cells, brown fat is a special type that generates heat but we do not (apparently) have that much of it, and beige fat is a type of fat that behaves abit like brown, i.e. it does not produce heat all the time but can be coaxed into “burning” fat to generate heat when stimulated.
The team had previously shown that beige fat cells could be activated by cold treatments and that research was published in Nature. This latest work has discovered the signalling molecules needed for the activation and so can now do away with the cold treatment.
This work was carried out in mice, so let’s see what happens when its trialled on humans. With so many quick fixes or low effort strategies reportedly out there already why do we still seem to be fighting the fat? It’s something to ponder…..
The research published in the journal Cell and available from the Sciencedirect website.