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Topics: Health, Science, Women's Health
Ella Scott
This is exactly what brown fat is, and why it's actually considered to be good for the body.
As Harvard Health Publishing states, there is no ‘normal’ body fat range, just as there isn’t an ‘ideal’ body weight.
However, as we all know, ‘too much’ fat can put you at risk of health issues, such as heart problems and Type-2 diabetes, as per the British Heart Foundation.
Ways to measure if your body is holding a lot of fat include researching your waist-to-height ratio and working out your body mass index (BMI).
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But not all fat is bad, with brown fat having some major health benefits. Here’s what you need to know
Experts have stated that three types of fat cells exist in the body, with the most common being white fat.
White fat stores energy, cushions organs, and helps to regulate hunger.
Another type of fat in our body is brown fat, which burns energy to create heat, and helps to control blood sugar and insulin levels, according to the Cleveland Clinic.
The third and final category of fat is beige, which, according to research published by Harvard Health, can spawn new therapies for obesity and diabetes.
Brown fat, often referred to as inducible brown adipose tissue (BAT), is often lauded as a ‘healthy’ body fat that stores energy in spaces much smaller than white fat typically does.
A dark-coloured adipose tissue, it is engineered to help your body maintain heat when the thermostat drops. But that’s not all the fat cell can do.
As per Healthline, it’s packed with mitochondria, which are rich in iron - how it gets its colour - and can burn calories during a biological process called thermogenesis.
Essential for maintaining body temperature in warm-blooded animals, thermogenesis involves generating heat through uncoupling proteins.
This process is likely to take place before you start to shiver because the brown fat activates in cold temperatures.
"When stimulated, brown fat has the capacity to produce 300 times more heat per unit mass than any other tissue or organ in the body," Michael Symonds, professor of developmental physiology at the University of Nottingham in the UK, told the BBC.
Newborn children have brown fat stores on their backs, necks and shoulders, the Cleveland Clinic reported.
When you enter childhood and late adolescence, the brown fat begins to disperse around the body, eventually ending up around the kidneys, adrenal glands, heart, and chest once you reach adulthood.
Very active adults, such as professional athletes, are likely to have more brown fat in their bodies than other people.
There are various reasons why you may want to increase the amount of brown fat in your body, such as wanting to lose weight.
You can do this by lowering your body temperature and adding iron to your diet.
Scientists suggest regular exercise, eating a nutritious, balanced meal, and possibly drinking caffeine may also lead to more brown fat in the body.
However, some other researchers have said that to reap the benefits, you’d have to drink 100 cups of coffee per day... which obviously, is not recommended.