Identifying good fat in a new way

Everyone wants more brown fat, instead of white fat because the brown is considered to burn energy, in order to keep you metabolically active and warm, while white fat stores energy in excess that leads to health problems. Researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School are trying to prove that brown fat is good fighter against obesity. “Brown adipose tissue, responsible for heat generation, has high importance in the context of metabolic diseases. Brown fat is more common in children but has recently been discovered in adult humans. However, measurement of its body distribution has remained technically challenging. We report a peptide probe that zeroes in on brown fat and can be used for localization of this tissue in mice by whole body imaging”, said Mikhail Kolonin, Ph.D., the study`s senior author and associate professor at the UTHealth Center for Stem Cell & Regenerative Medicine. If the strategy of brown fat will be effective in clinical trials, it could lead to potential personalized treatments for doctors.