Hello everyone I am making this article due to the fact I am researching it for a school project. I will copy and paste the links to the articles that relate to this blog post at the end of the post if you need verification or more explanation.
The basics:
There are two classified types of fat, white adipose tissue (WAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT). WAT is associated with weight gain and energy storage. BAT is associated with thermoregulation meaning when the body is cold the BAT is activated and causes heat to be generated to warm up the body. Weight loss is achieved under this basic equation
Calories in < calories out
As long as the number of calories you take in regularly is less than the calories you burn off your body is losing weight. Researchers are in a constant battle trying to find a way to increase calorie expenditure with the least amount of exercise being performed. The new theory is that BAT can cause a lot of weight loss if it can be activated.
HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?
This process is very complicated but I will put it into easy to understand concepts. BAT heats up the body by producing energy in the Electron Transport Chain. This process is one of the ways the body makes energy. (A link to more detail about the ETC is below). This process simply creates energy by transferring electrons across a proton gradient which creates energy for the body. The theorized reason why the BAT uses so much energy but does not produce very much effect is because the ETC allows hydrogen’s to leak back through the proton gradient in the wrong direction. This means the cells are working very hard but still not producing as much of an effect as if there was no leak. The easiest way to look at it is like this:
If you are stacking pennies one by one and your friend comes and takes one penny away every time you stake 3 pennies. You are always taking a step back and you are forced to stack 133 pennies to get 100 pennies stacked because your friend keeps making you have to redo previously done work.
So when the BAT is activated the body is working harder to produce same results so you burn off more calories. If you want to lose weight studies show that you need to increase the amount of BAT you have and activate it more.
HOW DO I ACTIVATE MY BAT?
Some studies show that if a person is exposed to a cold climate then the BAT is activated at an increased rate compared to a warm environment. There have been studies done on mice that show they lost the equivalent of 9lbs a year due to simply activating the BAT. Some people say to put your feet in cold water before a workout and that will cause the body to activate the BAT. Research also shows that woman have more or are able to activate more BAT then men can. We do not really know why except for some enzyme activity is slightly different. These theories are mostly speculations.
CONCLUSION:
BAT weight Loss is not a proven treatment for obesity; it is simply an idea that is being researched. If someone can understand how the ETC allows hydrogens to leak back through then it may be applied to WAT. If this can happen then a functional weight loss technique may be created because then people would increase their resting metabolic rate. If someone can figure out how to uncouple (allow hydrogens to leak through) the ETC then obesity may not even exist anymore.
This article is not meant to give insights and facts, it is meant as a thought provoking post. If you are curious about BAT and its weight loss functionality then check out these links below.
Thank youJ
http://www.jlr.org/content/34/7/1057.short - article ( free full txt)
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1890175,00.html – review article
http://www.jbc.org/content/278/35/33370.full article ( free full txt)
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