We change white fat to brown
Scientists have figured out how to turn harmful fat into useful
BBCScientists have discovered a way to convert mammalian body fat from one type to another, which opens the way to faster calorie burning and weight reduction (a summary of the results is published in a press release
The Johns Hopkins University: Turning 'Bad' Fat Into 'Good': A Future Treatment For Obesity? – VM).
Scientists from the American Johns Hopkins University made such a conclusion as a result of experiments on rats, however, they believe that their proposed technique will work with the human body.
An article published in the journal Cell Metabolism (Knockdown of NPY Expression in the Dorsomedial Hypothalamus Promotes Development of Brown Adipocytes and Prevents Diet-Induced Obesity – VM) states that a mechanism has been found to suppress the synthesis of cellular protein, which is associated with hunger and is involved in the transformation of so-called brown fat into white fat.
White fat is considered harmful, accompanies obesity and causes metabolic disorders. Brown fat, on the contrary, is used by the human body as an energy source to generate heat and burn calories. It is especially abundant in infants.
As you age, brown fat mostly disappears and is replaced by white fat, which is usually deposited at the waist. Experts believe that if a way to stimulate the production of brown fat is discovered, it will be a revolutionary achievement in the fight against excess weight and related diseases, primarily diabetes.
A new approachA team of scientists led by Dr. Shen Bi from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine managed, apparently, to discover an effective method of solving the problem.
The researchers managed to suppress the activity of a gene in the brain of rats, in which information about the structure of the appetite–stimulating protein - neuropeptide Y (NPY) is encoded, after which they observed a decrease in appetite and weight in experimental animals. Even when the rats were fed very fatty foods, they continued to lose weight compared to the control group, which had a normal metabolism.
Then the scientists compared the composition of fat deposits in both groups of rats and found an interesting difference between them. In rats with the NPY gene disabled, some of the white fat was replaced by brown fat.
Scientists hope that in the future they will be able to achieve a similar result in humans with subcutaneous injections of brown fat stem cells, which will burn harmful "white fat" and stimulate weight loss.
"This is a very interesting and innovative approach," says Dr. Jeremy Tomlinson from the University of Birmingham. "We will need many more studies to clarify the full picture, but this result opens up new avenues in the development of obesity treatment."
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru04.05.2011