With obesity ranking as one of the most urgent public healthcare issue, there is huge interest for research in the field. Recent studies have brought to light details that bring the medicine one step closer to fighting an effective anti-obesity treatment. The latest discovery belongs to scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute who found a beige fat cell that could help against obesity.
Despite numerous ways of losing weight, varying from surgery to extreme diets and working out, there isn’t a fast relieving and permanent solution. Fat burning cells in the body have been tricked with different factors to work harder and faster. The discovery of a new type of energy burning cell, could give experts a better grip obesity research.
Researchers with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute published their report in Cell journal. They called their new identified cell “beige fat”. Data presented reads this type of cell could help people lose weight. In fact, it might be the cell that’s actually responsible for the massive amount of calories your burn during exercise.
Bruce Spiegelman, researcher with the Harvard Medical School, explained: “We’ve identified a third type of fat cell. There’s white brown and bow there is this third type that is present in most or all human beings”. He also explained the beige fat cell might be the body’s way of adapting to shivering but might not be permanent.
“They probably increase or decrease depending on physiological conditions such as age, sex and obesity” said Spiegelman.
The researcher added the new fat cell features combined traits from white fat and brown fat, although it has a different gene profile than these two. But the great thing about this discovery is a particular trait. “The beige cells have the capability to switch between an energy storage and energy dissipation phenotype in a manner that other fat cells lack” write the scientists.
Cell biology professor Bruce Spiegelman emphasized his team’s research could “teach us to activate it”. It they do then weight loss and anti-obesity medicine would be entering a whole new dimension. By finding what triggers the beige fat cell, treatments would be a lot more effective, and fast.
