• HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Wednesday, May 25, 2022
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • BIOENGINEERING
    • SCIENCE NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • FORUM
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Biology

Energy-burning brown fat less active in boys with obesity

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
April 14, 2022
in Biology
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Hamilton, ON (April 14, 2022) – A study at McMaster University has found that brown adipose tissue (BAT) is less active in boys with obesity compared to boys with a normal body mass index (BMI).

MRI image of brown fat

Credit: McMaster University

Hamilton, ON (April 14, 2022) – A study at McMaster University has found that brown adipose tissue (BAT) is less active in boys with obesity compared to boys with a normal body mass index (BMI).

 

Senior author Katherine Morrison said that BAT, also known as brown fat, helps the body burn regular fat and is activated by cold, but her research team noticed reduced BAT activity in the boys with obesity in response to a cold stimulus.

 

The researchers of McMaster’s Centre for Metabolism, Obesity and Diabetes Research performed MRI scans to measure BAT activity in 26 boys between the ages of eight and 10. They studied the BAT tissue in the neck before and after one hour of exposure to a cold suit set at a temperature of 18 degrees Celsius. The patient sample included 13 boys with a normal BMI and the same number again with obesity, in the first study of its kind in children.

 

“The promise of this study is that if we can better understand BAT and how to mimic or stimulate its effects, it might offer us new therapies to treat obesity,” said Morrison, a professor in the university’s Department of Pediatrics and pediatrician at the McMaster Children’s Hospital.

 

“Beyond helping families improve their nutrition, physical activity, and sleep, we have few treatments to assist children and adolescents with obesity. There are new medications that reduce appetite used in some adolescents. Investigating BAT activity holds out the hope of developing a new class of drugs that increase the amount of energy you burn.”

 

However, Morrison said that it is still unknown whether a lack of BAT activity causes obesity, or if the condition simply impairs brown fat’s ability to burn energy.

 

She said that newborn babies have large amounts of BAT, but it steadily decreases through childhood, so that by adulthood it is mostly present only in the neck region. The reason for decreasing brown fat levels in children remains unknown.

 

Morrison said her team used MRI scans to measure BAT activity as it did not expose the boys to ionizing radiation, unlike CT or PET scans. This potential safety risk has impeded research in children until now.

 

This study was funded by an internal grant from the Boris Family and external funding for the study was provided by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

 

-30-

 

 

Editors:

 

The paper is available at https://bit.ly/3jF1fnG

 

An MRI scan is attached.

Cutline: MRI image of brown fat in the posterior neck (the area in teal blue outlined in pink) Credit: McMaster University

A photo of Katherine Morrison is also attached.

 

 

For information, please contact:

Veronica McGuire

Media Relations

Faculty of Health Sciences

McMaster University

289-776-6952

[email protected]

 

 



Journal

Diabetes

DOI

10.2337/db21-0799

Method of Research

Imaging analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

Impaired Cold Stimulated Supraclavicular Brown Adipose Tissue Activity in Young Boys with Obesity

Article Publication Date

16-Mar-2022

COI Statement

The authors have no potential conflicts of interest related to this article.

Share12Tweet7Share2ShareShareShare1

Related Posts

Huanhuan Joyce Chen at PME UChicago

Hunting for the immune cells that predispose people to severe COVID-19

May 24, 2022
Resting State Recorded with ISOI in Squirrel Monkey

Capturing cortical connectivity close-up

May 24, 2022

New gene identified in arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy

May 24, 2022

Type 2 diabetes accelerates brain aging and cognitive decline

May 24, 2022

POPULAR NEWS

  • Masks

    Hidden benefit: Facemasks may reduce severity of COVID-19 and pressure on health systems, researchers find

    44 shares
    Share 18 Tweet 11
  • Breakthrough in estimating fossil fuel CO2 emissions

    46 shares
    Share 18 Tweet 12
  • Sweet discovery could drive down inflammation, cancers and viruses

    43 shares
    Share 17 Tweet 11
  • Discovery of the one-way superconductor, thought to be impossible

    43 shares
    Share 17 Tweet 11

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Tags

Weather/StormsZoology/Veterinary ScienceVaccineVehiclesUrogenital SystemUrbanizationWeaponryVirologyViolence/CriminalsUniversity of WashingtonVaccinesVirus

Recent Posts

  • Assessing the risk of drinking water contamination during flooding
  • Improved NRR electroactivity by MoS2-SnS2/poly(zwitterionic liquids)/polypyrrole/graphene oxide
  • Sunsmart streets using recycled rubber last twice as long
  • Hawk’s eyes may not help the world’s only nocturnal hawk hunt at night
  • Contact Us

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

© 2019 Bioengineer.org - Biotechnology news by Science Magazine - Scienmag.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
Posting....