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Asked by Brie mode fearless to Theresia, Katie, Giovanna, Duane, Andy on 13 Nov 2014.
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Giovanna Bermano answered on 13 Nov 2014:
Brown fat, also called baby fat, is one of two types of fat that humans have – the other type is known as white fat. Babies have high levels of brown fat and its main function is to generate heat. It is different from the white fat as the fat inside is stored in small droplets instead of a single big droplet. In addition it gets its dark red to tan colour from the iron stored in the mitochondria, the machine inside the cell which produces energy for the cells to survive. As the brown is very active and uses a lot of oxygen, the amount of blood vessels within brown fat is higher than in white fat….contributing to the reddish colour!! scientist have discovered that adults still have some brown fat in the neck and chest and research is on going to see if it can be used for weight loss as apparently it can take calories from the white fat and burn them!!! a lot of research still need to be done on this one!!!
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Duane Mellor answered on 13 Nov 2014:
It is amazing stuff as it can generate heat by the mitochondria working differently, it’s called uncoupling. Instead as energy released from respiration being stored as ATP it is released as heat energy.
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Andrew Philp answered on 14 Nov 2014:
Brown fat is very interesting as it behaves very differently to white fat. One of the main reasons for this is that brown fat are jammed packed full of mitochondria, which are energy generating cells. These are the same mitochondria that your muscle have to use fuels to make energy. We have learnt a lot about cellular metabolism by comparing differences between white and brown fat. As white and brown fat are genetically similar, there is an interesting concept in science at the moment that converting white fat to brown fat might be a way of reducing obesity. Still very much an idea at this point, but very cool…
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