Being the Master of the Fat Cell Genetic Switch

Details on the Beige Cells are Still in Infancy Stage

For those of you out there who hate the term ‘fats’ and run away from foods containing this nutrient let me make this clear: Firstly, fat is a nutrient and in fact a macronutrient that’s essential for the body’s functioning and secondly, not all fats are created equally bad, there are good ones too that you need to pick up for your well-being. At the same time, every individual needs to incorporate essential fat portions in his/her meal, regulate meal contents to include a combination of macronutrients and micronutrients and enjoy the food for a well-balanced meal that’s also mentally satisfactory. But when these practices are not in place and you are all over the foods that you enjoy, obesity and other health conditions are not far away! This imbalance has indeed resulted in an obesity-driven world which is not far away from witnessing an obesity epidemic without proper intervention methods. If you are obese/overweight you can lose weight in a scientific way by getting in touch with registered dietitian nutritionists at www.firsteatright.com.

There are three different fat cells in the body: white fat which is the most common of all and associated with conditions such as obesity and diabetes. Brown adipose tissue is integral to heat production in all mammals and has been the apple’s eye of researchers as it provides scope for weight loss. The brown fat cells are packed with energy-producing mitochondria that aid in burning fuel efficiently. Beige fat cells too contain more mitochondria and are found dispersed within white adipose tissue but are induced in response to certain environmental conditions and external cues such as cold climate and exercise. Though brown cells have been known to us since sometime beige cells are quite new and are gaining popularity as they promise to hold the key to weight loss treatments and help in understanding how environmental factors control cell specifications and maintenance.

Releasing Gene Inhibitors
Though previous research shows that white fat tissue that overexpresses early B-cell factor 2 (EFB2) recruits more beige fat cells, there are many other factors that trigger the release of the protein-coding gene. Transducing-like enhancer 3 (TLE3) is a protein located at the same region as EFB2 and this protein acts like a switch stopping EFB2 from converting white to beige fat and also preventing energy expenditure and glucose use. A group of researchers were interested in the functioning of the TLE3 protein and looked into ways to inhibit its functioning to enable methods for preventing type 2 diabetes.

These researchers deleted the TLE3 protein from a group of mice and placed them in cold conditions for several days together. The environment maintained was such that the animals kept trying to develop beige fat cells and, in the process, these mice were successful in developing more beige fat cells. Through this process the research team got to understand the effect of the absence of the TLE3 protein and also were able to examine the impact of the abundance of beige fat cells on the mice’s health. Results showed that these mice experienced increased energy expenditure under normal conditions and weight loss during cold conditions but it was also proved that the mice did not gain much weight even in the absence of a cold environment. The primary goal of these researchers was to use these results to create interventions for metabolic disorders. Maybe we would be able to release a drug in the market sometime in the future that targets TLE3 thereby serving to cure metabolic diseases such as obesity and diabetes-two diseases that are spreading like wildfire in human beings owing to our haphazard lifestyle practices and eating habits.