Why Being Chunky Might Be A Benefit.

A question I asked myself before diving into this article was: Does brown adipose tissue functionality significantly impact energy balance and human obesity?

            In the article that I read, it states that obesity is caused by energy imbalance, when the energy in the foods we intake exceeds the energy that is used up through physical activity and metabolic processes. White adipose tissue specializes in lipid storage and expands during obesity while brown adipose tissue is able to expend chemical energy as heat. Within these brown fat cells are numerous mitochondria that have a protein called the uncoupling protein 1, this protein depletes the force that synthesizes cellular ATP as a consequence of this protein the energy within the mitochondrial gradient is then released as heat. Brown adipose tissue is normally a fat within rodents and newborn infants that defends the core body temperature from the cold; the cold sensation causes the sympathetic nerves to release catecholamines, a naturally occurring amine that functions as neurotransmitters and hormones within the body, which stimulates proliferation and heat production through brown adipose tissue. In experimentation with rodents the authors found that brown adipose tissue gets activated and then proliferates as a response mechanism to overfeeding. This mechanism in the article is called the “diet-induced adaptive thermogenesis” it helps to limit excess to weight gain, but in humans there is data that says brown adipose tissue activity declines with increasing age. At the end of the article the authors had an idea of creating brown adipocytes ex-vivo for transplantation, the drawback for this idea would be that humans would have an increased appetite, in response to the onset of numerous brown adipocytes being injected, in order to conserve energy and maintain homeostasis. Another concern about this idea is that with the potential weight loss the increase of brown adipocytes may cause sky-rocket levels of perspiration and overwhelming amount of heat generation. Overall, they hope that these finding will help with better understanding the functionalities and mechanisms that work together to maintain a constant body weight and hopefully one day these findings and studies will help reduce the amount of obese people in our society helping them live a better happier functioning lifestyle.

Article Source: Seale, P., & Lazar, M. A. (2009). Brown fat in humans: turning up the heat on       obesity. Diabetes, 58(7), 1482-1484. doi:10.2337/db09-0622