Mechanism that converts white fat to brown identified in JEM publication
An international team of researchers led from Karolinska Institutet have, in experiments on mice, pinpointed a mechanism for the conversion of energy-storing white fat into energy-expending brown fat. The study is published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.
Obesity is a major global health issue, affecting all age groups. Obesity increases the risk of several serious human diseases, including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. Despite this knowledge, effective drugs for the treatment of obesity and related metabolic disease are lacking.
Scientists differentiate between white adipose tissue, which constitutes most human fat and which stores surplus energy, and brown adipose tissue, which generates heat by consuming energy. One possible way of tackling potential obesity, suggest researchers, is to stimulate the conversion of parts of the white fat into brown.