Can having more body fat actually make you thinner? Counterintuitive as it sounds, recent research concludes that a certain type of fat—brown adipose tissue, or “brown fat”—is actually a potent calorie-burner. Now, a new study that actually tested the transplantation of brown fat suggests the tissue holds exciting potential for the treatment of diabetes and obesity. Reporting in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard Medical School transplanted brown fat into the abdomens of 12-week-old mice—effectively doubling their deposits of the tissue. After twelve weeks, these mice showed improved metabolic activity and insulin sensitivity, meaning their bodies were better able to regulate blood sugar levels. “I think that we demonstrate the transplantation of [brown adipose tissue] can have a very strong and positive metabolic effect,” says study author Laurie Goodyear, PhD, an associate professor at the Joslin Diabetes Center. “The mice are mimicking what happens in humans over time. The brown fat counteracted those aging effects.” More from Prevention: The Food Group That Burns More Fat So is a brown fat transplant in our future? Goodyear cautions that the approach might not be the most promising medical therapy to pursue, instead pointing to a specific protein—Interleukin-6 (Il-6)—that’s secreted from brown fat and plays a key role in the fat’s positive impact. Still, researchers need to further investigate the role of Il-6 before they can be sure exactly what it does or how it might, one day, help treat diabetes or promote weight loss. As for increasing our brown fat stores without surgery, researchers still don’t have solid advice. Some evidence suggests that ongoing, periodic exposure to cold temperatures might increase an adult’s store of brown fat, and other investigations have linked an acid found in apple peels to greater levels of the tissue. In the meantime, your best bet for slimming down? Go with what you know—move more, eat smart, and avoid these metabolism-slowing mistakes. Questions? Comments? Contact Prevention’s News Team!
