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How Now, Brown… Fat?
There are no short cuts to weight loss. In my experience, I still find that the most effective way to help people lose weight is with the combination of a healthier diet and exercise along with addressing underlying metabolic imbalances — such as insulin resistance, thyroid gland function and stress levels (because stress hormones impact both insulin resistance and thyroid hormones).
However, there have been recent discoveries, and much discussion1 about the role that so-called brown fat may play in weight loss. Brown adipose tissue — brown fat — is common to many mammals. It’s different from our blobby yellow fat in that it has a very high metabolic rate and contains a protein that converts calories directly to heat. That helps it do its job, which is to keep mammals warm in cold weather. Even when brown fat isn’t kicking in to raise body temperature, its high metabolic rate also helps keep those animals lean.
As humans, we are born with some brown fat, but it was thought that we lose all of it as we age. However, recent research in the New England Journal of Medicine2 has discovered that adults do retain some brown fat, and that brown fat is inversely proportional to body mass index (BMI). Researchers now think that increasing our brown fat activity may help us lose weight.
Since the primary trigger for brown fat thermogenesis (burning) is having adequate levels of T3 thyroid hormone,3 metabolic balance and optimization is the most important factor in keeping brown fat as active as it should be.
However, I did some research and there are ways to enhance brown fat activity.
