Sound gross right? Who wants brown fat, let alone any fat! All joking aside, brown fat has been linked to increased metabolism and ultimately lower overall body fat. In a previous article I wrote about how to increase your own brown fat by changing your sleeping environment. Now there are talks of a new weight loss drug used to increase your own brown fat levels.
Brown Fat Is Our Friend
While white fat is the fat that we hate to have, brown fat actually acts more like muscle by burning white fat. Researchers have come up with a new drug to help people produce more brown fat in efforts to increase metabolism and speed up weight loss.
GC-1 is name of the new drug that was used in the trials. GC-1 activates the receptors for the thyroid hormone. The thyroid recpetors increases the body’s ability to turn calories and fat into heat.
The researchers discovered that genetically obese mice lost more than 50 percent of their fat mass in about two weeks. Mice also seemed to experience anti-diabetic effects, as well as an improvement in insulin sensitivity.
Says study author Kevin Phillips, Ph.D.: “GC-1 dramatically increases the metabolic rate, essentially converting white fat, which stores excess calories and is associated with obesity and metabolic disease, into a fat like calorie-burning brown fat (source).”
I am excited to see how the research on the human population turns out. I’m sure people will be breaking down their doors to try this new “wonder drug.” The ability to decrease body fat and possibly shrink the worlds growing diabetes community could be a huge breakthrough. The drug still has to be studied further but the possibility of what it could do to brown fat is exciting.
What do you think? Would you test out this new drug? Comment below and use our share links to spread the fitness love.
Adria
Janet Shelnutt says
Adria Ali says