The human body holds two kinds of fat: brown fat, which burns energy, and white fat, which not only increases our pants size but also can cause obesity, and its attendant ailments range from joint damage to diabetes.
People with obesity often have a genetic profile that renders the body unable to make enough brown fat.
Now scientists at Boston’s Joslin Diabetes Center have found a way out of that problem.
The researchers used cells that were developing into white fat cells and genetically engineered them to amplify a gene that redirected the cells to become brown fat cells instead.
When the modified cells were transplanted into mice fed a high-fat diet, the treated mice were better able to clear fats and sugar from their blood, and also gained less weight, compared to a control group of mice.
TRENDPOST: Re-engineering a person’s own white fat cells to become brown avoids the problem of transplant rejection and could become a routine treatment for obesity and a preventive approach to diabetes in the 2030s.
