WASHINGTON — A new study indicates body fat adapts to cold temperatures, and that knowledge could benefit researchers working on a new and safer type of weight loss drug.
Researchers looked at the two types of fat found in the human body: The bad white fat which is found in bellies and thighs, and the good calorie-burning brown fat.
White fat is by far the dominant kind in adults. But the research team, led by Dr. Philip Kern of the University of Kentucky School of Medicine, found cold temperatures may cause unhealthy white fat to act more like the brown.
The researchers collected belly fat samples from 55 adults in the summer and winter. They also took samples of thigh fat from 16 people after they held an ice pack on their skin for a half-hour. In both cases, they found fat exposed to cold had adapted, and had higher levels of genetic markers for brown fat.
“The study does suggest that there are changes in the composition of our body fat,” says Dr. Joshua Cohen, an endocrinologist and professor at the George Washington University School of Medicine.
Cohen says brown fat, which is in short supply in adults, acts like a furnace that is burning fuel and producing heat, noting “it metabolizes at a very, very high rate.”
But there is one downside to this research. The study found that this fuel- burning effect is blunted in obese people, who need it the most.
“There is a component of inflammation that is present in the fat in people who are obese and markedly overweight and it is possible that that inflammatory component is interfering with the effects of the cold response,” says Cohen.
He says the results of the study are interesting, but warns that the findings — published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism — do not constitute a weight-loss breakthrough.
“Simply saying, gee, all we have to do is sit in the refrigerator for a couple hours every day and it would help us in terms of weight loss, I am not sure that is the direction to go,” Cohen says.
Instead, he suggests viewing these findings as an important piece of a much larger research puzzle.
“There are a lot of things going on in fat,” Cohen says, adding that all this research may one day produce a fool-proof weight loss program.
“That is exactly the kind of work that is being done now and being looked at with a lot of interest.”
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