Oct 29, 2020
Not all body fat is the same.
Scientists have identified the presence and significance of brown
fat in adult humans. Shing Kajimura researches brown fat and how
its presence curbs
obesity and type 2 diabetes as well as other metabolic
diseases.
Listen and learn
- What mechanisms cause brown fat to produce heat for our bodies and become a "metabolic sink" for glucose and lipids,
- How the amount of brown fat we have depends on age, climate, and time of year, and
- How researchers hope to use this to produce therapeutics for metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes treatments.
Shingo Kajimura is with Harvard Medical School's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and works in the endocrinology, diabetes, and metabolism division. He's interested in molecular bases by which we adapt to different environmental stresses like nutritional changes, dietary changes, and even temperature changes. Enter brown fat. Adult humans have brown fat around their neck, almost like an internal scarf, and in a few other areas. When we got cold and shivering can no longer do the trick to warm us, brown fat's thermogenesis steps in. He explains exactly how it undergoes a molecular process similar to how a light bulb emits energy, which in turns eats up glucose and lipids. Enter type 2 diabetes causes.
This brown fat activity has
associations with improved lipid and glucose handling. Because it
eats up glucose and lipids, it is a significant "metabolic sink"
for these molecules. It literally takes up glucose and combusts it
in cells. Unfortunately, we can't just deposit brown fat in people
as a
type 2 diabetes cure. He explains how climate, which also
implicates seasonality, and age connect to brown fat presence.
There's a significant decrease in brown fat when we hit our forties
and fifties.
Cold adaptation is also a factor, and the body starts making brown
fat fairly quickly after cold exposure. All these factors make the
issue a little more complicated and Dr. Kajimura explains how in
very clear terms. There is hope that this research may benefit
those of us that could benefit from more brown fat. He comments
that researchers are looking at bio medics to make our fat cells
feel cold without our brain actually thinking the same.
For more about his work, see his
lab's web page: kajimuralab.org.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK