Applying heat locally activates beige fat in mice and humans, and could become an approach to tackle obesity, a study published today (March 4) in Cell suggests.
“Overall, they suggest a fascinating and very easy to translate observation, by applying that mild heat you might activate thermogenic adipocytes. But in humans the situation is definitely more complicated,” Siegfried Ussar, an obesity researcher at Helmholtz Munich, Germany, who was not involved in the study, tells The Scientist. “It will be interesting to see how that translates to humans, because the nature of the cell types is still controversial plus the impact on the blood flow might be different.”
Adipose tissue comes in three colors: white, brown and beige. While white fat specializes in storing lipid and expands during obesity, brown fat is thermogenic, turning energy into heat. Beige fat is the middleman: beige fat cells are located within white fat and ...
