How to increase brown fat

Recently, reports about "brown fat" often appear. Unlike the "white fat" that we often say, brown fat can burn more energy, so a theory has been drawn on the Internet that if we have more brown fat, we can be slimmer. So, what is brown fat? Does it really help to lose weight? 1. What is brown fat? Brown fat, also known as Brown adipose tissue (BAT), and White adipose tissue that makes you fat (also known as conventional adipose tissue), but when we cut the patient's abdomen during surgery, the exposed adipose tissue is light yellow. Why is it called white? I don't understand. ), brown fat cells contain a lot of mitochondria, and the capillaries in the tissue are very rich, which makes them appear reddish brown. The main function of BAT is to regulate body temperature. It contains a large number of mitochondria that can generate heat instead of ATP, and it will only be activated under special circumstances such as cold. For example, when people enter cold conditions, our bodies will naturally maintain body temperature balance through two ways of rapid heat production. One is Shivering thermogenisis, which is what people call shivering, and what doctors call shivering is to provide heat through the contraction of skeletal muscle. The other is Non-shivering thermogenisis ISIS, also known as metabolic thermogenesis, which is mainly accomplished by brown adipose tissue. BAT activity has been increasing from childhood to adolescence, reaching its peak at about 13 years old. After that, the activity of BAT decreased with age. Personally, I think that this change in the activity of BAT is a manifestation of evolution. BAT can improve the survival rate of newborns at an early stage, and even if we live in a relatively cold environment, we can live better. After adulthood, our demand for BAT seems to be less intense. We can wear more clothes when we know that it is cold, and return to a warm environment. If not, we can directly shiver our muscles to produce heat (in comparison, newborns have less muscles and cannot produce heat by themselves) It was previously thought that BAT had no effect on heat production in adults, but an observational study using positron emission computed tomography (PET-CT) proved that there was a metabolically active BAT in adults [3]. The researchers found that the activated brown adipose tissue heats up by rapidly consuming glucose and fat prevention. When its own stored fat is exhausted, the white fat stored in other parts of the body becomes its new fuel, which can't help but make some people start the "fantasy" that BAT can be used to lose weight ... (The purple area referred to by the small flame is brown fat prevention tissue, and the yellow area is white fat tissue) Human fat, according to its different functions, It can be divided into white adipose tissue (WAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT), which are different in terms of body distribution, cell morphology and molecular markers. 2. Does brown fat really help to lose weight? Popular understanding: when our body consumes too much energy, it will be converted into white adipose tissue and stored. When we need to maintain our body temperature in a cold environment, then brown adipose tissue comes into play. When brown adipose tissue starts to burn, it will continuously extract white adipose tissue from human body and convert it into brown adipose tissue for burning. Therefore, it is considered as an important idea to lose weight. Brown adipose tissue has been studied in rodents for a long time, but for humans, it is studied late. On the one hand, human beings have their own common method of generating heat, which is known as shivering. On the other hand, the distribution of brown adipose tissue is relatively hidden, so the discovery of brown adipose tissue is delayed. It was only a few years ago that the existence of brown adipose tissue in adults was confirmed, and since then, more discussions and upsurge have been triggered. Although brown adipose tissue is not widely distributed in adults, it is mainly distributed on the two sides of the neck, the upper back, near the clavicle and around the spine. The following figure shows the distribution of brown adipose tissue in human body, but its combustion efficiency is very high. It is estimated that if brown adipose tissue is fully activated, it can consume 2% of the basic metabolic energy of human body. Therefore, at present, many scientists have turned their attention to the brown adipose tissue, a natural fat burning weapon. At present, there are two ways to increase the total amount and activity of brown adipose tissue: 1. Activate the growth of brown adipose tissue in human body, which mainly stimulates the growth, differentiation and activation of brown adipose tissue in human body through drugs or genes. 2. Transplantation of foreign brown adipose tissue, which mainly induces the differentiation of brown adipose tissue through stem cells, and then implants it into obese patients. However, it should be reminded that the research on brown adipose tissue is still in its infancy, so we have to wait for more time. At present, many health products on the market that promote "activating brown adipose tissue" are questionable and need to be used with caution. In fact, the best way to activate brown adipose tissue is freezing. In addition, brown adipose tissue is a normal phenomenon with the decrease of age, and whether additional brown adipose tissue will cause other negative effects needs further study. Although many experiments have proved that we can really increase brown fat by taking some medicine, there are still many concerns at present. The older people get, the less brown fat they have. So you see, young people often die and eat fat, but when they get older, they begin to gain weight. This makes us very embarrassed. Does the body not let brown fat grow at all? Moreover, we don't know whether to take the medicine for a long time, or at a specific time, or whether to change the energy intake, and so on. As for fat transplantation, although autologous fat transplantation is very mature now, it is impossible to induce brown fat cells alone. We still don't know how brown fat is differentiated. If you just transfer your own fat from your belly to your ass, it's still that fat … and the survival rate of surgical cells is not that high, 2-9%, which is very wide. Besides, this kind of operation has indications, and not everyone can do it. So, although it is said that brown fat produces heat now, there is no way to increase brown fat for you at present. It is said that the only effective way is to keep your body a little cold all the time. It is said that white fat will turn into brown fat. Of course, it's just said. Brown fat is only responsible for heat production. Too much brown fat will definitely make you eat fat, but you just can't get more. You might as well think about rejuvenation. Moreover, brown fat can also be regulated by both nerves and endocrine, and maybe you will lose weight if you think more every day. If you want to be thin, go to exercise quickly! Author | Dr. Li Lei Chen Zhou's son Dabai said that the biological article was jointly launched by Penguin Science and Popular Science China. Please indicate that it is from "Popular Science China".