Newly Identified 'Beige Fat' Cells Could Help Fight Obesity

July 11, 2012— -- Looking to slim down? Then beige is your color, at least as far as fat is concerned.

Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have isolated a new type of energy-burning cell known as "beige fat," which they say may have therapeutic potential for aiding weight loss and treating obesity in adults.

According to a new report published in the journal Cell, beige fat is scattered in pea-size deposits beneath the skin near the collarbone and along the spine. But rather than storing excess calories in the form of jiggly thighs and a jelly belly as blubbery-and-prolific white fat does, this type of fat is a calorie burner.

"During exercise, muscles release the hormone irisin, which then converts ordinary white fat cells into beige ones – and those beige cells burn up extra calories," explains Bruce Spiegelman, the senior author of the paper.

It's long been known that the calories burned during exercise exceed the number used during the actual activity. Beige fat could be responsible for torching these extra calories. However, because the muscles also release irisin when the body is cold, Spiegelman speculates that the beige fat mechanism might have evolved as a response to shivering, which, like exercise, is a neuromuscular activity.

Spiegelman doesn't necessarily believe the conversion of cells to beige is permanent. "It's an adaptive process," he says. "They probably increase or decrease depending on physiological conditions such as age, sex and obesity."

This could be why more brown fat and perhaps more beige fat is present in people who are fit and physically active versus those who are slothful couch potatoes. An attractive hypothesis to be sure, but Spiegelman cautions there's not yet enough evidence to prove it.

Beige fat appears to be genetically distinct from "brown fat" another type of fat found in small amounts in the necks and collarbones of adults and in larger amounts in rodents and human infants. It's distinct from the white fat that plagues anyone who struggles to lose weight. Both brown and beige fat have an abundance of mitochondria, the tiny power plants of the cell that convert food into energy and generate heat. Both types contain iron, which gives them their distinctive brown and beige hues.

But the two fats differ in a number of ways. One key difference is that brown fat cells express high levels of UCP1, a protein required by mitochondria that burns calories and generates heat, whereas beige cells normally express low levels of it. Beige cells can, however, turn on high levels of UCP1 in response to cold or the release of irisin, enabling beige fat to burn calories nearly as effectively as brown fat. Also, brown fat cells appear to arise from stem cells precursors that also produce muscle cells, while beige fat forms within deposits of white fat cells from beige cell precursors.

The discovery of irisin, and its ability to transform white fat to brown fat was originally announced in another paper by Spiegelman that his team published earlier this year. This latest Cell report confirms that irisin specifically stimulates white fat to produce beige fat.

Dr. Dazid Katz, director of the Yale University Prevention Research Center, said the existence of a middle ground between white and brown fat makes sense.