Fat cells are interesting things, not only can they tide us over when food is scarce by storing our excess energy in times of plenty (white fat), but they can also release all their energy as heat to help regulate our temperatures, especially when we are babies (brown fat).
But recently there was found to be a third type, beige fat, which is kind of white fat induced to be brown. This is great as it means instead of storing the fat it gets “burnt” to produce heat. These cells have been shown to be able to suppress weight gain and metabolic disease. This is where things get interesting, it would seem that resveratrol, a polyphenol produced by many plants and present in grapes, raspberries and blueberries, is able to coax white fat cells into becoming beige.
Published in the International Journal of Obesity, researchers fed mice a high fat diet with and without the addition of resveratrol. They found that those that had been fed the resveratrol expressed proteins that suggest beige cell formation.
Biege fat has previously been touted as a weapon in the fight against obesity as this will cause some of the excess energy to be converted to heat instead of being stored as white fat. Unlike previous research, this one actually uses levels of resveratrol that could be ingested naturally by consuming fruit, instead of having to take a concentrated pill.
Oh, and as I’m sure some of you are thinking, yes, as it is in grapes it is also present in wine.