Although we think that all fats make us fat, the truth is that in our body there is a type of fat, brown, which helps us burn calories
Body fat is soft, mushy, and has a bad reputation. But fat also plays a vital role in keeping our bodies running smoothly. We store the extra energy in body fat. It keeps us warm and offers padding for our internal organs.
In addition, it secretes chemicals that play a role in appetite. Moreover, it helps regulate menstrual cycles.
In other words, in healthy amounts, it is a necessary organ. However, people don’t seem to be very interested in fat except for how to lose it.
Read on for some of the body fat issues you probably didn’t know about.
1. Fat has different colors
When you think of fat, you most likely think of white matter in the abdomen, hips, and thighs that stores energy until you need it.
But there is also brown fat, more common in newborns, as it helps them keep their body temperature stable without shaking. It turns out that adults have small amounts of brown fat too. However, much research remains to be done to determine exactly what role it plays.
In 2012, different scientists at Sherbrooke University published a study showing the following:
- When the study participants, all male, were exposed to low temperatures, the brown fat in their bodies helped keep them warm by using white fat for fuel. In other words, brown fat burned white fat to provide the body with the necessary energy and heat.
2. Not everyone has brown fat
However, people who are obese have almost no brown fat. Researchers are studying whether it is a lack of brown fat that causes obesity or whether extra white body fat is what prevents brown fat from activating.
According to researcher Shingo Kajimura of the UCSF Diabetes Center, adults have about 50 grams of brown fat, which can burn energy equivalent to about 4.5 kilograms of white fat per year.
However, people begin to lose brown fat in the late 1940s and early 1950s. It is suspected that this could be related to obesity and age.
- Kajimura has been conducting trials of brown fat in mice to see if it is capable of activating or inhibiting its growth. He explains that his team has found an inhibitor to stop the enzyme that helps fat grow. You are now looking for the brown fat activator, which you hope can lead to a cure for obesity.
- Shawn Talbott, a nutritional biochemist, said that the amount of brown fat in humans is so small that it cannot be considered capable of burning calories or keeping our bodies warm.
- On the other hand, Kajimura said that a drug that stimulates the energy-burning properties of brown fat is a “realistic future” if the research continues.
3. Fat keeps us warm
All fat cells, not just brown ones, can sense temperature directly and respond to cold by releasing their energy in the form of heat, according to a 2013 study reported by ScienceNOW.
4. Exercise can change the behavior of fat cell DNA
The amount of fat our bodies carry is determined in part by genetics. Still, researchers at the Lund University Diabetes Center in Sweden found that exercise could play a role in activating or deactivating certain genes that have to do with fat storage.
- The researchers sucked the fat cells of dozens of sedentary, but healthy Swedish men.
- They then underwent a six-month regimen of movement or aerobics twice a week.
- By the end of six months, the men had lost weight and were healthier.
- But not only that, many of the fat cell genes had also been altered. Some of them have to do with fat storage and the risk for the development of obesity or diabetes.
5. Not all fat cells are the same
Some people are obese and metabolically healthy, while others have metabolic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol levels.
It turns out that you can see these differences at the cellular level. A new study in the journal Diabetology suggested that the fat cells of unhealthy obese people look and act differently than the fat cells of healthy obese people.
- Rather than producing new cells to store more fat, the original fat cells in unhealthy obese people only swell to their breaking point. Which leads to inflammation and fat accumulation in organs like the liver and heart.
- The fat cells in healthy obese people, however, are smaller. In addition, they create new fat cells when more fat is needed than is stored.
6. Human body fat is full of potential stem cells
Those stem cells are similar to those derived from embryos.
In 2009, researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine found that human fat removed during liposuction contained versatile cells that can be induced to become pluripotent stem cells or cells that can be converted to fat, bone, or muscle.
The process was easier than converting skin cells to stem cells.
7. Fat cells need sleep too
By skimping on sleep, you could be damaging your body’s ability to make fat respond to insulin. All this could lead to weight gain or diabetes in the future.
Researchers from the University of Medicine at Chicago did the following experiment:
- They recruited seven young, thin and healthy to participate in the study.
- The first week, they spent 8.5 hours in bed for four consecutive nights.
- A month later, they spent just 4.5 hours in bed on four consecutive nights.
- During the two sleep sessions, food intake was identical.
- At the end of each four-day period, the researchers removed the fat cells from the volunteers’ abdomen. This was how they measured how they responded to insulin.
- After four nights of short sleep sessions, the insulin sensitivity of the fat cells had dropped by 30 percent.
In conclusion
Fat can cause problems such as obesity, however, not everything that comes with it is negative. Fat, meanwhile, has properties and effects on the human body that are positive and we must learn what they are.
If you have doubts about your fat level, we recommend you go to your doctor so that he can assess it and prescribe the most appropriate treatment.