By Kirsten'>http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Kirsten_Whittaker">Kirsten Whittaker
Everyone knows that exercising helps you lose weight because the activity draws on fat stores that muscles use as fuel. Now it seems the heart might be involved in producing calorie burning brown fat cells.
You've probably heard something about brown fat cells, a type of fat that burns calories rather than storing them as extra weight. Adults naturally don't have all that much brown fat in the body, but new research suggests that the hormones produced in the heart might help your body make more of this beneficial type of fat.
The hope is that effective solutions for weight loss can be developed by increasing how much brown fat a person has, or making your body burn more fat.
Up until recently only rodents and newborn babies were known to have significant stores of this calorie burning fat, its primary purpose being to regulate body temperature - brown fat cells burn sugar and release that energy as heat. As we age, the body is better at maintaining temperature and our stores of this fat shrink while white fat appears instead.
The study authors have found that hormones called cardiac natriuretic peptides known to be part of fluid regulation actually caused white, energy storing fat cells to transform into energy consuming brown fat cells in mice. If this were to be found in humans as well, the heart hormone might become an effective treatment for weight loss.
Researchers have been studying how the adrenaline system in the body is involved in the storage of fat and weight loss. In the latest piece of work they demonstrated that the heart hormones activate the fat burning system as well as the adrenaline system, allowing the two systems to work with each other.
When the researchers exposed the mice in their lab to cold, the creatures showed elevated levels of natriuretic peptides circulating in their systems, and this switched on the fat-burning fat.
In a separate study carried out on humans that was published in January 2012 it was suggested that cold encourages the potential of calorie burning brown fat. In this bit of research, six volunteer subjects were put in a climate controlled room while scientists tested to measure their fat metabolism.
When they got cold, but not enough to shiver, the metabolic rate of the subjects went up by 80%, burning an added 250 calories over a three-hour period. This was caused by the brown fat burning up ordinary fat.
However, some experts believe the hype around brown fat isn't backed by science, and treatments using it may not be possible. If the brown variety of fat can be stimulated and if it is effective when it comes to losing weight are two very big ifs. Also, the chance that this would cause other, unintended consequences is great.
We've been down this road before according to some, and there is a feeling that the focus on discovering a "quick fix" for weight loss takes attention away from the fact that we're overeating and exercising too little. Every time science has tried to work with the metabolic defenses of the body- trying to shut off our natural defenses - it hasn't worked. Watch for further research on brown fat cells, and in the meantime, stick to the tried and true for weight loss - less calories, more exercise.
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