Researchers of obesity discovered `good fat` in mice

There was a new method invented and developed by researchers in mice laboratory that can detect brown fat cells. The attempt of this new invention is to fight against obesity. Brown fat, also called good fat, burns calories to keep you warm, while white fat stores excess calories around your waist, leading to health problems. Currently, it's difficult to spot brown fat cells at the molecular level, a problem that has hindered efforts to harness their ability to combat obesity. The new detection method of brown fat was developed by researchers at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston and according to the study, it was proven to be effective in mice. This study is published in the journal Nature Communications. “Brown adipose tissue, responsible for heat generation, has high importance in the context of metabolic diseases”, study senior author Mikhail Kolonin said in a science center news release. “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”. “This is the first targeted imaging approach for the detection of brown fat”, said Kolonin, a professor of stem cell research.