A new study from the University of Nottingham, UK, shows that the way in which fat is made within the body is not ‘pre-programmed’ during the early years of development as previously thought but even in adulthood cells can be influenced by environment to change the type of fat that is formed.
Adipose tissue. Image credit: Blausen.com Staff / Medical Gallery of Blausen Medical 2014 / WikiJournal of Medicine 1 (2), doi: 10.15347/wjm/2014.010.
The two-year study centered on looking at how the body decides whether to form ‘good’ brown adipose tissue, which produces heat by burning fat, sugar and excess calories and helps to regulate blood sugar, or white adipose tissue, the ‘bad’ type of fat which stores energy and accumulates, causing weight gain over time.
Brown fat is found most commonly in babies and hibernating animals as nature’s way of keeping them warm while at their most vulnerable.
However, in recent years scientists have discovered that a small amount of brown fat is found in adults, and that the body retains the ability to form more under certain conditions.
“It has been known for quite some time that exposure to lower temperatures can promote the formation of brown fat but the mechanism of this has not yet been discovered,” said co-lead author Dr. Virginie Sottile.
“The trigger was believed to be the body’s nervous system and changes in the way we eat when we are cold.”
“However, our study has shown that even by making fairly modest changes in temperature we can activate our stem cells to form brown fat at a cellular level.”
“The good news from these results is that our cells are not pre-programmed to form bad fat and our stem cells can respond if we apply the right change in lifestyle.”
Dr. Sottile and colleagues developed a new in vitro system made from bone marrow stem cells and studied what would happen if its ambient temperature fell below 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius).
They found that when the mercury fell to 89.6 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius), it triggered the production of brown fat cells.
“This new system gave us an advantage over previous rodent models as we could study more accurately how specifically human cells would be affected by a decrease in temperature,” Dr. Sottile said.
“In the future, it could be used as a testing ground to rapidly screen potential treatments by looking at how specific molecules interact with the cells.”
“We could even use patients’ own cells to develop a tailored approach to finding out how we can more effectively treat them for diseases such as diabetes.”
In the future people who are keen to make a positive impact on their weight by reducing their white fat stores and increasing their percentage of calorie-burning brown fat may not even have to brave lower temperatures to achieve this.
“The next step in our research is to find the actual switch in the cell that makes it respond to the change of temperature in its environment,” Dr. Sottile said.
“That way, we may be able to identify drugs or molecules that people could swallow that may artificially activate the same gene and trick the body into producing more of this good fat.”
The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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Ksenija Velickovic et al. 2018. Low temperature exposure induces browning of bone marrow stem cell derived adipocytes in vitro. Scientific Reports 8, article number: 4974; doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-23267-9
