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A team of researchers at the Institute for Diabetes and Metabolic Health at UC Health at UC San Diego have discovered an innovative new way for weight loss.
According to the Times of San Diego, the team published a study on Wednesday, October 27, that describes how a previously unknown cellular pathway can regulate energy and heat in obesity.
The study explains that healthy humans carry two different types of fat tissues, white and brown. The white fat cells contain energy stored in a large oily droplet and brown fat cells are more complex and contain several smaller droplets that include mitochondria.
Some people also have "beige" fat cells, which are brown-like cells residing inside white fat that can be activated to burn energy.
The therapeutic potential of brown fat and beige fat cells had yet to be explored due to it being a complex process. Now, the team knows that the browning of fat cells depends on their ability to make and use glycogen.
Researchers have spent years trying to find ways to increase beige fat cell activity to burn energy and generate heat as a way to treat obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other conditions.
The team discovered that modulating glycogen metabolism in fat cells might provide "new approaches for weight loss and overall improvement in metabolic health.”