Age-related metabolic changes are associated with beige fat: Study

Researchers have revealed a method to avoid age-related weight gain, which may help to prevent obesity and related health issues such as Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and chronic inflammation. In a new study conducted by researchers at Cornell’s Division of Nutritional Sciences, housed in the Colleges of Human Ecology and Agriculture and Life Sciences, the effects of a slowing metabolism could be reversed by stimulating the production of a specific type of fat cell.
Mammals have two types of fat: white adipose tissue (WAT), which stores energy from excess calorie intake, and brown adipose tissue (BAT), which burns calories to produce heat to maintain body temperature. Published in Nature Communications, the study shows therapeutic promise in a third type of fat, a subtype of WAT: beige fat.
It has the same cellular precursors as white fat and the same thermogenic properties as brown fat, which means it helps to reduce blood sugar and the fatty acids that cause the hardening of the arteries and heart disease.
Assistant professor in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, Dan Berry, said, “There are seasonal changes in beige fat in young humans, but an older person would have to stand outside in the snow in their underwear to get those same effects.” When a person experiences sustained exposure to cold temperatures, stem cells known as adipose progenitor cells form thermogenic beige fat cells within white fat.
He observed in earlier work that the ageing process impairs the formation of beige fat cells in response to cold temperatures. Identify the biochemistry behind the slowdown, he said, and the same process could be reversed to achieve therapeutic outcomes. Abigail Bennie, lead author of the new study and a doctoral student researcher in Berry’s lab, “This is the ultimate goal. Without having to subject people to cold exposure for prolonged periods of time, are there metabolic pathways we can stimulate that could produce the same effect?”
The paper revealed the role of a specific signalling pathway that suppresses beige fat formation in older mice by antagonising the immune system. By suppressing that pathway in ageing mice, the scientists were able to prompt beige fat production in animals that otherwise formed only in WAT.