The word fat is usually associated with obesity, weight gain, diabetes, and damages to blood vessels and the heart, but scientists in a new study discovered that a type of fat reverses the equation, protects against diabetes and improves heart health, so what is this type of fat?
How can you get it?
The answer is "brown adipose tissue", which is a type of fat that stores energy in a smaller space compared to white fat, and brown fat is full of mitochondria (factories that produce energy in cells) that are rich in iron. Its color, brown fat generates heat, and it burns calories.
Brown fat converts food or calories into body heat in the event of a cold. When temperatures drop, these fats begin to work by producing heat, and in doing so they burn much more calories than white fats, such as muscle.
The study was conducted by researchers from the Rockefeller University in the United States, and published in the journal Nature, and included 52,487 people who were subjected to "F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography – computed tomography (scans), to assess their body's containment of computed tomography." Brown fat.
The researchers found that there is a relationship between having brown fat and reducing the likelihood of the following health problems:
1- Type 2 diabetes.
2- High blood fats.
3- Coronary artery disease and diseases of the brain and blood vessels.
4- Congestive heart failure.
5- High blood pressure.
These results were supported by better values for those subjects with brown fat for:
1- Blood glucose
2- Triglycerides
3- High-density lipoprotein (the good cholesterol).
The researchers stated that these beneficial effects were more pronounced in overweight or obese individuals, indicating that brown fat may play a role in mitigating the harmful effects of obesity.
What is the difference between brown fat and white fat?
White fat or "white adipose tissue" is the traditional fat in the body, in which the body stores energy and accumulates around the body.
Humans having a lot of white fat is not a good thing, as it leads to obesity, and the presence of a lot of this fat around the middle area may increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes and other diseases, and the white fat is found under the skin, and it also surrounds the internal organs.
As for brown fat, it stores energy in a smaller area than white fat, and it is filled with mitochondria (cells that produce energy in cells) that are rich in iron, which is why they get their color.
Brown fat tends to be found primarily around the neck and shoulders, from just below the neck to just above the collar bone.
Newborns and hibernating animals have large stores of brown adipose tissue, and brown fat in newborns makes up about 5% of their body weight, and is found in the upper half of the spine and shoulders.
These brown fat cells protect children from hypothermia, which is a major cause of death in newborns, and the proportion of these fats gradually decreases with age.
White fat cells consist of a single fat drop, but brown fat cells contain many small fat droplets and many mitochondria.
Because they consume more oxygen than white fats, brown fat also contains more capillaries, and has many nerves, and the primary function of brown fat is to produce heat, and it is activated when the body cools.
How to increase brown fat in your body?
All people have some "constitutive" brown fat, which is the type you were born with, and there is also another "recruitable" form, meaning that it can turn into brown fat under the right conditions, and there is this convertible type. In muscles and white fats all over the body.
There are two ways that may help increase brown fat in the body, and they are:
1- Reduce the temperature
Exposing the body to cold and cold temperatures may help convert more fat cells into brown fat.
Some research has indicated that exposure to just two hours per day to a temperature of around 66 F (19 C) may be sufficient to convert the convertible fats into brown fat.
You can take a cold bath or an ice bath, and lowering the temperature by a few degrees in your home or going out in cold weather are other ways to cool your body, and perhaps produce more brown fat.
2- Doing sports
Research in mice indicates that a protein called irisin might help convert white fat into brown fat.
Humans also produce this protein, and researchers have discovered that people who do not exercise produce much less "irisin" than those who exercise a lot, and levels increase when people do "intense aerobic interval training".
In these exercises, short periods of intense aerobic exercise are alternated with periods of less intensity.
However, there isn't enough research in humans to confirm whether exercise creates more brown fat, but exercise has many health benefits, such as reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes and aiding in weight control.
It is recommended to engage in 150 minutes of moderate physical activity - such as walking - per week, or 75 minutes of vigorous physical activity - such as running - per week.