Want to burn off that McShit on a bun sammich you ate at lunch?
Why not make more brown fat to battle it in your sleep, then?
Via a nice chilly slumber?
Indeed, the key to burning just might be freezing in bed.
Our whole perspective on adipose altered a bit when we learned that not all fat’s bad. We suddenly had to learn that while white fat still is a calorie storer, that when we grow up (even if in body only, like me) we still also have some of that brown fat that helps us burn off the excess energy we either don’t need or aren’t willing to work off. Previously, we thought it was restricted to hibernating animals or left us after infancy. But now, we know that not only do we still have this stuff capable of reducing the gross kind of fat, but that it can also help reduce the symptoms of diabetes by policing glucose level (it’s funny because it’s ironic. And it’s ironic because the f’real police around here are the bad kinda fat. And probably all have diabetes. And pronounce it “diabeetus”. Moving on.)
Needless to say (although I’m gonna), this has been a sexy source of interest for scientists.
Babies (who can’t shiver in the cold to stay toasty) need that brown fat – so it makes sense why the experiment they did to test this included sleep studies in settings of cold-but-not-teeth-chatteringly-so temps (along with a few other temps). After four months of trying out bedtime conditions going from 66 degrees up to 81 degrees, the results are so compelling for the cool snooze study that I’m having trouble making a joke about it: in the 66 degree month, volunteers ended up with two times the amount of brown fat and increased insulin sensitivity.
SciAm’s writeup about the wet-suit version of this (done at a slightly lower temperature), gave me a case of the multiple Aha’s. Here I am, thinking, “I bet when they keep doing these studies, it eventually levels out and they stop losing calories after a while.”
Nay, sir. Enter the beloved “beige fat.” Much like the grinch who gains a heart, our white fat can gain qualities of the brown fat – and act like it too. After we hang around enough in chills-ville, our internal light clapper for a certain gene goes on and tells the white cells to get off their lazy asses.
Nice, right?
No, not if you hate the cold like me. I’d say “Maybe I’ll just starve instead”, but the fact is I may not have to. We have options. We can rebuild brown fat. Or… tan the white ones. Whatever. We have the technology.
In their findings, it appears that a hormone called Irisin that we make after exercise has been successful in causing the same damn thang when injected into lab mice. So, America’s dream of couch-surfing being a real physiological-effective sport could become a quasi-real thing. But until they actually make the cardio hormone available for me to mainline in the loo after my durian and avocado binges, I’ll just go with melatonin, since it too is known to raise the ratio of brown fat.
Also, it’ll help me fall asleep as I burn calories in a bed as warm as a morgue drawer.
