Brown Fatty

Because weight loss science wasn't confusing enough as is, three new studies in the New England Journal of Medicine show that adults have an additional form of fat previously thought to exist only in babies.

Tantalizingly titled "brown fat," it's used by infants to keep warm. What it does, basically, is activate when the body is cold and burn white (normal) fat for fuel. 

From WebMD:

For example, Kirsi A. Virtanen, MD, PhD, of the University of Turku, Finland, and colleagues analyzed brown fat in five young men. One of the men had about 2.2 ounces of brown fat.

"If the brown [fat] in this example were fully activated, it would burn an amount of energy equivalent to approximately 4.1 kilograms [9 pounds]" of fat over the course of a year, the researchers calculate.

And that's a low estimate, as this assumes only 50% activation of the brown fat.

Yeah, that's right. You get cold and it makes you burn fat. But being uncomfortable in low temperatures is the only way to activate the stuff and it turns out that skinny people have more of it than overweight people, so don't get too amped yet.  

In my opinion this is terrible news. Mark my words, here's how it'll play out. First, scam artists will come out with dozens of pills, treatments, books and doodads that grossly misrepresent "brown fat science." Then five or six misguided souls, desperate to lose weight, will get hypothermia and die using said science. I'm guessing it'll happen next January or February and the epicenter will be North Dakota. 

Then legitimate medical professionals will develop a safe method for the use of brown fat and it'll give the world one more trick to avoid exercising and eating properly.

And then a couple more North Dakotans will kick the bucket.

Gross fat photo courtesy Colorado State University.