Now, a new fat to shed fat

London:  Scientists have identified a third type of fat that helps burn calories in adults, a finding they say could speed up the development of effective treatments for obesity. The calorie-burning tissue, called beige fat, is produced from ordinary “white fat” cells that store energy and contribute to excess bodyweight. In addition, there is heat-generating “brown fat” carried by infants to keep them warm. Past research had suggested adults also had small amounts of brown fat, which helped to prevent obesity. The new work showed that what was previously thought to be adult brown fat is actually a genetically distinct “beige fat”. [caption id=“attachment_376795” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  You can eat up all you want now because a new study has found that apart from white and brown fat cells, there is a third type of cell called the beige fat cell. If stimulated correctly it could burn calories and help shed obesity.[/caption] Like brown fat, it has the ability to burn calories instead of storing them in waistline-expanding deposits. Beige fat is now seen as a key target for new strategies to fight the obesity epidemic, the researchers said. “We’ve identified a third type of fat cell. There’s white, brown and now there is this third type that is present in most or all human beings,” lead study researcher Dr Bruce Spiegelman, from Harvard Medical School, was quoted as saying by the Daily Mail. “Going forward, it means that what you want to study for potential therapies are the beige fat cells in these ‘hotspots’ we’re all walking around with,” he said. Dr Spiegelman’s team found beige fat cells in scattered pea-sized deposits beneath the skin near the collarbone and along the spine in human adults. A natural hormone made by exercising muscles, irisin, stimulates beige fat to burn calories nearly as effectively as brown fat, they found. The research, published in the latest online issue of the journal Cell, showed that beige fat cells spring from stem cell precursors of white fat cells. In contrast, brown fat cells emerge from muscle stem cells. Beige fat cells behaved like a hybrid of the two cell types, being able both to store and burn calories. Stimulated the right way, their burning capacity was ramped up, the researchers found. They could be stimulated either by cold or certain hormones, such as irisin. Meanwhile, Ember Therapeutics, a biotic company founded by Dr Spiegelman, now plans to develop the hormone’s therapy potential. PTI