Obesity: two new fat-burning mechanisms discovered

Despite a caloric diet, our body would be able to implement two mechanisms that help burn fat. Two different researches tell us which ones.

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The fight against obesity does not stop. Despite a caloric diet, our body would be able to implement two mechanisms that help burn fat. If it is true, as it is true, that overweight and obesity are starting to fight at the table and with a healthy lifestyle, science continues in search of drugs that are increasingly capable of controlling excess weight.

Two researches, one based on cold, the other on a specific protein, have experimented with mechanisms aimed at awaken the so-called brown adipose tissue, which is the part of the adipose tissue that helps burn calories.

In fact, in mammals there are two different types of adipose tissue: one white and one brown. The first, actually yellowish in color due to its carotenoid content, represents almost all of the reserve fat. It is in fact abundant in hibernating mammals and in puppies, while in humans the brown adipose tissue is found in small quantities in the newborn. With the growth, much of this tissue is transformed into white adipose tissue and for this reason in the adult there are only traces of brown adipose tissue, which in any case favors the consumption of calories contrary to what the white fabric does, which instead accumulates them.

The two researches went precisely to identify those mechanisms that activate the tissue that consumes calories.

For the first research, conducted at the Dana-Farber Institute for Cancer Research, a group of US scholars led by Edward Chouchani found that the cold promotes concentration in the brown adipose tissue of a substance produced by metabolism, the so-called "succinate”, Which is released into the bloodstream by muscle activity and then stored by the brown adipose tissue. In the experiments, it was enough to administer "correct" water with succinate to avoid gaining weight, not even following a diet rich in fat. The succinate would raise the temperature and thus favor the consumption of calories.

The second study conducted in Spain at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (Cnic), has discovered another way to activate brown adipose tissue. In this case, the architect would be one protein, the "p38 alpha", identified in the brown adipose tissue of over 150 obese individuals. This protein would be able to curb another protein, called UCP1, also present in brown adipose tissue, which activates fat-burning cells and develops heat.
By removing this "brake", according to scholars, the fat-burning tissue would function at full speed. The next step will be to see if these two mechanisms of activation of brown adipose tissue can be enclosed in some drug therapy.

In the meantime, let's remember to take care of ourselves and our body. To have a longer, healthier and more vital life, you just need to love and pamper your body every day, even at the table.