Applying heat locally activates beige fat in mice and humans, and could become an approach to tackle obesity, a study published today (March 4) in Cell suggests.
"Overall, they suggest a fascinating and very easy to translate observation, by applying that mild heat you might activate thermogenic adipocytes. But in humans the situation is definitely more complicated," Siegfried Ussar, an obesity researcher at Helmholtz Munich, Germany, who was not involved in the study, tells The Scientist. "It will be interesting to see how that translates to humans, because the nature of the cell types is still controversial plus the impact on the blood flow might be different."
[...] Adipose tissue comes in three colors: white, brown and beige. While white fat specializes in storing lipid and expands during obesity, brown fat is thermogenic, turning energy into heat. Beige fat is the middleman: beige fat cells are located within white fat and are indistinguishable from them, unless they undergo a process called browning. After browning, beige fat burns energy and produces heat. "We want to understand how we can activate beige fat to prevent or treat obesity," Xinran Ma, an endocrinologist at East China Normal University in Shanghai, China, who co-authored the new study, tells The Scientist.
Previous research by other groups had sought to induce browning through various stimuli, including cold treatment and the activation of beta-adrenergic signaling. In the present study, the researchers used a different stimulus: heat, applied just to a region thought to harbor beige fat. The researchers used nanoparticles, which they injected into white fat found around the groin of mice. When exposed to near-infrared light, the nanoparticles heat up the tissue around them to about 41°C. And when the researchers induced this temperature for 10 minutes in mice, they observed increased heat production in the area after 12 hours using thermal imaging—an indication that at least some of the area's beige fat had browned.
The researchers then tested local hyperthermia therapy in humans by applying a heat source of 41°C to fat deposits around the neck and the shoulders, where beige fat is thought to be found in humans. Again, internal heat production in the area increased, and remained elevated for two hours after the external heat source was removed, based on thermal imaging. From that, the authors concluded that local hyperthermia could induce thermogenesis in humans by activating beige adipocytes.
(Score: 2, Offtopic) by driverless on Sunday March 06 2022, @10:07AM
... has known this for ages. Sheesh, and they got a journal article out of it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 06 2022, @10:41AM (10 children)
I wonder if you could track this is a group of (obese) people that start visiting a sauna on regular basis.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday March 06 2022, @01:58PM (6 children)
As someone that visits saunas somewhat regularly I can tell you that there is usually a fair amount of fat men in there, but it might be an age thing. Anyhow it doesn't seem to be working in the melting department. That said I guess perhaps they are healthier then the non-sauna people in some aspects but at a glance it doesn't seem to be doing them any wonders in the fat storage department at least. But their fat issues could have other reasons or perhaps they are just putting it on faster then it can melt away.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday March 06 2022, @04:08PM (4 children)
I doubt they're getting their fat up to 41C. If they did, they'd also cook their brains
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday March 06 2022, @04:37PM
41C = 106F
If your core temperature got this high it would be an immediate threat to life, but skin temperatures do get this high in a hot sauna. I don't have a FEA model for heat flow in a human body, but you're probably right about not getting that high in adipose tissues.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 06 2022, @06:24PM (1 child)
Heated MAGA hats.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 06 2022, @10:22PM
Is that what they're calling tin foil these days?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday March 06 2022, @09:58PM
I doubt that to as they would probably stroke out and die around or when their core temperature reach about 40-43C. That said you would have to be in a normal Sauna for quite some time for that to happen.
A normal hot sauna is supposed to be between 70-100C, less if it's a steam sauna but then it's more about the humidity then the heat. You would have to stay in there a while before your body would reach that temperature and as noted you would be dead before that happens. As an example just take the last World Sauna Championship, starting temperature in a steam sauna of 110C. So extreme it's not even funny, then they put more and more water on as the seconds inside ticked by. They had to drag them out after six minutes or so, one had horrific third degree burns and the other guy died and that was the last of that competition.
But then you are not supposed to sit for hours in a sauna. You sit for a bit then you go outside or go rest a bit or depending on how or where you are get some food and drink and relax and then you go in for another bit and then repeat. Also there are, probably, other health benefits to doing it beyond any eventual fat burning.
Humans live in areas where there is more then 40C in the air tho. We survive and adapt to that. But that isn't the same as sitting in a Sauna until your fat melts away.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday March 06 2022, @07:58PM
This proves nothing.
You could have a fat melting ray but if you eat too much your body will quite happily store it as new fat.
The idea that you could melt fat in targetted locations while DIETING is incredible and has been a holy grail for gym bunnies forever.
For me personally, when I was training I would lose fat off my arms first and my stomach last. Fucking biology...grumble...
Slava Ukraini!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 06 2022, @04:26PM (2 children)
We know that a goodly chunk of the calories burned during exercise is the result of thermal regulation, you just don't burn much just by moving. It's a common mistake that physics teachers make, because temperature regulation is fairly expensive in terms of calories.
Likewise, if the temperature in a room is turned down, the body still needs to be at the same temperature, do more calories are needed.
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday March 06 2022, @10:32PM (1 child)
This is something surprising for the people that swear by exercise for weight loss. An hour of vigorous exercise, only burns about one Dunkin Donut apple fritter worth of calories.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 07 2022, @01:16AM
Yep, if you're at the tipping point and you avoid eating anything else to compensate for the exercise, you would lose weight, but that's incredibly hard to manage and free will. Very few manage for any meaningful length of time. Exercise is about preventing your body from decreasing muscle mass to bridge the gap more than anything else.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Mojibake Tengu on Sunday March 06 2022, @01:21PM (8 children)
Verily I doubt this research.
Time ago, I have met lot of rich fat people in hot India, at countryside where no climatization of palaces may interfere with human metabolism. So I consider ambient temperature an insignificant factor to obesity. YMMV in Mexico.
Anyway, by ancient Chinese medicine paradigm, most of fat in human is stored in lymphatic system and intercell space, not inside fat cells themselves.
Lymphatic is a kind of subsystem mostly ignored by western medicine, for example in the western paradigm of injury treatment, the spleen is often removed for no reason as a standard procedure. I consider this an evil intention, for as a consequence, that prevents damaged westerners from doing martial arts at full scale of abilities and denies any possibility of developing supranatural skills relevant to it.
Mark my (s)words.
A scientific paper describing lympho-drainage is one of the oldest preserved Chinese books ever, it's about 4500 years old. Compare that to the western
fanaticreligious books of the same age.Obesity is fully healable, by balancing spleen it just disappears itself.
Rust programming language offends both my Intelligence and my Spirit.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 06 2022, @02:17PM
-1 Ignorant quackery
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Sunday March 06 2022, @04:11PM
I've never known anyone to have their spleen removed. It's known in western medicine to be critical for blood health.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by ElizabethGreene on Sunday March 06 2022, @04:32PM (1 child)
Quoting Homer Simpson:
Joking aside, I am interested and motivated. Could you suggest a link to start me down this rabbit hole? I'm several decades into my struggle against a very low BMR. My current strategy is a combination of 20/4 Intermittent fasting and Keto. That is working, but it's not long-term sustainable. My body remains convinced we are facing a desperate famine and has turned off all non-essential heat producing machinery. Constantly freezing, on the verge of shivering, is wearing on me.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by krishnoid on Monday March 07 2022, @04:08AM
No links, but a suspicious-looking rabbit checking it's watch and an anecdote. I personally know someone with diabetes who was on insulin, who I convinced to try acupuncture for that condition and others. This is not a guarantee (see "medical protocol" item below), but after completing just a couple acupuncture sessions (the usual course is once weekly for about three months), when her doctor examined her next, the doctor was shocked that her blood sugar had dropped so significantly. She thinks the only reason the doctor believed her when she said "acupuncture" was because he was Chinese. Quantitatively, he slowly brought her down to a third of the amount of insulin she used to take, and may only have kept her at her final level because that was the minimum dosage (and couldn't put down "acupuncture" as a reason for eliminating it completely).
My experience -- for myself and others, in the US and overseas -- has been that:
If I had one main idea, it's that it does work in some cases, it's still not cause-effect determined why, and it's just a bunch of very thin needles that don't even draw blood, so it's not something that'll have side effects even if it doesn't end up working -- you don't have to worry about how getting some thin needles poked into you for an hour a week will pharmacologically interact with other medication or whether it's eliminated by your kidneys or liver.
My suspicion is that "spleen", etc. are early descriptors for hormonal regulation from acupuncture, but using terms like that to associate them to organs that you can, like, see. Perhaps cause and effect are confused, e.g., the spleen may not be responsible for generating an acupuncture-regulated hormone; instead, hormone dysregulation effects may have shown up in the spleen's appearance or behavior, or match further downstream effects which correlate with a diseased spleen. That's mostly speculation, though.
(Score: 3, Funny) by deathlyslow on Sunday March 06 2022, @04:47PM
Are you also a chiropractor?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 06 2022, @04:55PM
Temperature is as big a factor as exercise is. But neither is as substantial as what you can put on via fork in mouth disease.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday March 06 2022, @06:30PM
[citation needed like whoa now]
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday March 06 2022, @06:53PM
I seem to recall "hot wraps" to "melt away fat" in the earliest moving pictures 100 years ago.
Seems like if that had remarkable repeatable results, it would be widely practiced toady.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by crafoo on Sunday March 06 2022, @07:25PM (3 children)
Stop eating nut, seed, vegetable oils. Stop eating sugar - all sugar. Eat meat, animal fats, and some vegetables. Do not eat processed foods: nothing that comes with a label and more than 2-3 ingredients. Lift 3x a week, about 20 mins each. Try 5x5 if you are having trouble putting together a compound muscle group functional strength program. It takes hardly any time and effort. You don't need to be a gym-bro or an insane dieter. Just make a few simple changes to your lifestyle.
There you go. Do that and you won't be fat. You won't be able to over-eat nearly as easily because you just won't want to. You will build core strength and real, functional strength.
Maybe pick up a book and read it. Cultivate a positive attitude and stop tormenting yourself in your own mind.
Take heart. You're almost a human. You don't have to be a broken pig snorting around in the trash and mud your entire life.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 06 2022, @08:53PM
>. Stop eating sugar - all sugar. Eat meat, animal fats, and some vegetables. Do not eat processed foods: nothing that comes with a label and more than 2-3 ingredients.
If you added "eat bugs" then you would have outlined the Democrat Diet.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 07 2022, @07:49AM
This is very good advice
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 08 2022, @12:02AM
If I pick up a heavy enough book, does that satisfy the wight lifting requirement too?
What can you bench? Metaphysics, epistemology and thermodynamics.