The fat in your body comes in a variety of flavours. The majority is white adipose tissue (WAT) which is most easily recognised as the fat that covers our body and serves amongst other functions as a major store of excess energy. Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is a highly thermogenic tissue that converts food energy (chemical) into heat instead of storing it as fat. Up until recently that is all we thought there was; and seeing as Human adults have little BAT, and it’s tricky to influence its activity, then unless a person was very motivated to set up the right conditions then this seemed like a dead-end. However this year (2012) researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute discovered a new kind of fat cell called beige fat, which works with exercise to promote fat (WAT) loss.
Beige fat cells resemble WAT but function more like BAT in response to certain signals. During exercise muscles produce a hormone called irisin, which increases the activity of BAT and promotes fat loss. Beige fat also increases the conversion of chemical energy to heat in response to high levels of irisin.
Beige fat cells may be an important tissue for promoting exercise-induced fat loss.
Reference:
Cell, Volume 150, Issue 2, 366-376, 12 July 2012
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