Found: ‘Good' fat regulator
Dr Sun believes the mechanisms driving the development of brown fat could have therapeutic potential
Obesity, a global problem, can lead to serious health consequences such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes. Researchers at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore (Duke-NUS), in the largest study of its kind, have found a new way to regulate brown fat ' tissue which speeds up metabolism and burns calories ' a discovery which can potentially enable researchers to combat obesity.
In the paper published in Cell Metabolism on 23 April 2015, Duke-NUS Assistant Professor Sun Lei and team investigated long non-coding ribonucleic acids (RNAs) in the fat tissue of mice. Such RNAs have gained recognition as important control elements for various biological functions in the body. From the researchers' catalogue of 1,500 long non-coding RNAs, the most comprehensive to date, they identified a specific candidate which regulates the proper development of brown fat cells.
Brown fat, also known as brown adipose tissue, is used to generate body heat in humans and other mammals. It is especially prevalent in newborn babies to keep them warm, and was previously believed to disappear after growth. However, the tissue has been observed to develop in adults and become more active in cold weather to regulate body temperature. Recent studies have shown that controlling the development of brown fat could result in weight loss as the tissue consumes calories by burning regular fat.
Dr Sun, who is from the Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases Program at Duke-NUS, explained that the mechanisms that drive or guide the development of brown fat will have therapeutic potential. The work will add to the team's growing expertise on obesity and diabetes.
However, before any pills or supplements can be developed to help boost brown fat activity, human trials have to be undertaken first and a specific long non-coding RNA in humans will need to be determined. As a result, researchers and pharmaceutical companies may eventually be able to exploit non-coding RNAs to maximise brown fat production to speed up weight loss.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 1.9 billion adults worldwide were classified as overweight in 2014, with 600 million of them obese. This represented more than double the prevalence of obesity between 1920 and 2014, a major public health issue, considering the associated risks.
