Monday, April 17, 2017

Protein may cause obesity by interfering with brown fat


There are two main types of fat in the human body, white fat and brown fat.  The white fat typically stores energy as triglycerides and is typically referred to as the less healthy form of fat, as it's associated with heart disease and diabetes.  Brown fat however is made up of more mitochondria and serves to turn energy into food, especially by thermogenesis.  Brown fat has been shown to reduce obesity, however a certain protein, Id1, diminishes the positive effects of brown fat.  A study was done using mice and it found that mice who overproduced the Id1 protein gained much more weight then mice who didn't.  Id1 specifically regulates the ability of the brown fat carry out thermogenesis, therefore inhibiting the efficiency of the brown fat.  The study with mice also determined that removal of this protein didn't show that it was necessary for normal functioning.  This study is thought to parallel the potential of this protein in humans.
Article
Study on Mice

3 comments:

  1. I never knew there was two different types of fat, especially one being good fat and other being bad fat. This article was very interesting to read.

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  2. I never knew there was two different types of fat, especially one being good fat and other being bad fat. This article was very interesting to read.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So are either of the two types of fat ideal to have in the body? Is there a simple divide in the amount of fat of each our body has? I find this very interesting and the introduction of a protein decides the synthesis of one of the fats, but is their correlation of Id1 and white fat?

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