The researchers have found a technique to turn body fat into an improved form of fat which burns off calories and weight. The burst through is made by the US Johns Hopkins team in lab mice, however they believe that same could be done in human beings.
It could present the anticipation of a new means to treat obesity. Altering the appearance of a protein associated with appetite not only diminished the calorie intake in mice but also transformed their composition of fat. The team led by Dr Sheng Bi from at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine believes they may have cracked the way to do it.
They designed a trail to observe if repressing an appetite-stimulating protein known as NPY would reduce body weight in mice. When they calmed NPY in the brains of the rodents they found their food intake and appetite decreased significantly. They also found that even when mice were fed a rich high fat diet, they still managed to maintain more weight off than mice that had fully working NPY.
Then researchers checked the fat composition in the mice and revealed that an appealing transformation had occurred. In mice having silenced NYP expression, some of the bad white fat had been reinstated with good brown fat. The researchers are optimistic that it may be possible to accomplish the same effect in humans.
It could be done by injecting brown fat stem cells under the skin to burn white fat and arouse weight loss. Brown fat is plentiful in infants, which they use as a source of power to produce body heat and disbursing calories simultaneously. However, grown in age, brown fat starts to disappear.
The brown fat is replaced by bad white fat that characteristically sits as a spare tyre around the waist. By stimulating the body to make more brown fat rather than white fat could be a helpful means to control weight and prevent obesity and its related health problems like type 2 diabetes, reasoned the experts.
According to lead author Dr Bi If they could find the human body to turn bad fat into good fat that burns calories instead of storing them, they could add a solemn new tool to deal with the obesity epidemic. Only future study will tell if that is possible.