That's a lot of fat in one blog post title, but fat is in the news again and this time it's encouraging news. Encouraging if you are interested in the effect of fat on health, both ours and our pets.
Obesity and type II diabetes are big concerns for dogs, cats and their people and there's new research on the subject of body fat type and the effect exercise has on the composition of body fat.
Before we get into that, let's go back a couple of years and re-examine the roles of both types of body fat. We'll cover the new research on Wednesday.
By now most of us realize that we have good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, but did you know that the same concept seems to apply to fat? Mammals have both brown fat and white fat and recent research has revealed new and important information on the role each plays in long term health.
First, let me clarify one thing. Fat, either brown or white, is not inherently good or bad. Both types serve important functions, but just like the cholesterol analogy, too much of one kind and too little of another can have a significant impact on health.
Brown fat has several unique characteristics. Brown fat, as the name implies, is much darker in color than white fat. Brown fat cells have more blood and nerve supply than white fat cells and brown fat is deposited in only certain areas of the body.
Until recently we thought that brown fat was only important in hibernating animals, like bears, and in new born animals. Brown fat represents about 5% of total body weight in human infants and it diminishes with age. An adult human may only have a few ounces of brown fat, but those few ounces are important.
The reason brown fat is so important to neonates and hibernating animals is due to its ability to generate heat. Brown fat helps keep babies, small mammals in cold environments, and hibernating animals warm. Researchers have concluded that brown fat is stimulated by cold and this is where things get interesting from a health perspective.
Brown fat burns white fat to produce heat and it can burn up a lot of white fat when activated. Recent research demonstrates that 50% of adults have meaningful levels of brown fat. When brown fat is activated it has the potential to burn up to 9 pounds of white fat over the course of a year. That's without dieting and exercise, by the way.
Even more interesting is the fact that obese animals and animals with high levels of blood sugar appear to have low levels of brown fat. If there was a way to stimulate the development of brown fat and activate it in these individuals we would have a new weapon to control obesity and the related development of type two diabetes.
This research from 2009 is encouraging. Scientists have discovered that a common protein messenger molecule called BMP7 stimulates the production of brown fat. If we can figure out the chemical pathway by which cold activates brown fat we may be able to trigger that reaction in some positive way.
On Wednesday we'll cover the latest research on the role exercise plays in the stimulation of brown fat.