An image of a mitochondrian in a brown fat cell

We are easily led astray by medical headlines. A study will be released telling us we must include or eliminate something from our diet, and then two months later another study will say the exact opposite. We’ve seen it time and time again with carbohydrates, fats, various vitamins and minerals – one day they’re good, the next day they’re bad. It’s enough to make you throw your hands up and cry, “Uncle!” 

Which is why something very interesting has just happened in the medical community.  Three separate studies, all with good cohorts (that means a lot of people took part in them), agreed that the percentage of brown fat in your body helps to determine your BMI.  The higher the percentage of brown fat you have, the lower your BMI.  As you age, this becomes more true.  

It turns out babies are born with brown fat deposits that help keep them warm.  As we grow into adulthood, our percentage of brown fat decreases and lies dormant in our body.  Think of brown fat as a furnace and calories as its fuel.  The more active brown fat you have, the more calories you need to eat to maintain your weight.  The larger of the studies suggests brown fat is still active in 7.5% of women and 3.1% of men.

Certainly, this is a small percentage of the population.  But if scientists can figure out why the brown fat “kept working” in these people, they may discover a way to activate dormant brown fat cells for the rest of us. This would open a whole new treatment for obesity and, of course, the race is already on at various pharmaceutical companies and biotech firms around the globe. 

The Joslin Diabetes Clinic has been extensively researching in this area.  In 2005, they isolated a protein that seems to turn these “dormant” fat cells back on so they can start burning calories again.  The protein is called BMP-7. 

There is further explanation in a post on the Boston Globe’s Health blog.  All three studies have been published in the April issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, here, here and here.

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