Researchers have published a captivating new study on how coffee might be depended upon to do considerably more than simply get everyone up in the morning.
Analysts from the University of Nottingham have found that drinking a cup of coffee can stimulate “brown fat”, the body’s own fat-battling defenses, which could be the way to handling obesity and diabetes.
The study, published earlier this week in the journal Scientific Reports, is one of the first to be carried out in humans to discover components which could directly affect “brown fat” functions, a significant part of the human body which plays a key role in how rapidly everyone can burn calories as energy.
Brown adipose tissue (BAT), otherwise called brown fat, is one of two sorts of fat found in people and different mammals. Initially only attributed to babies and hibernating mammals, it was found in recent years that grown-ups can have brown fat as well. Its primary function is to create body heat by burning calories (rather than white fat, which is a result of storing excess calories).
Individuals with a lower body mass index (BMI) hence have a higher measure of brown fat.
“Brown fat works in a different way to other fat in your body and produces heat by burning sugar and fat, often in response to cold,” said Professor Michael Symonds, from the School of Medicine at the University of Nottingham who co-directed the study.
“Increasing its activity improves blood sugar control as well as improving blood lipid levels and the extra calories burnt help with weight loss. However, until now, no one has found an acceptable way to stimulate its activity in humans.
“This is the first study in humans to show that something like a cup of coffee can have a direct effect on our brown fat functions. The potential implications of our results are pretty big, as obesity is a major health concern for society and we also have a growing diabetes epidemic and brown fat could potentially be part of the solution in tackling them.”
The group began with a series of stem cell studies to check whether caffeine would stimulate brown fat. When they had discovered the right dose, they at that point proceeded onward to people to check whether the outcomes were comparative.
The group utilized a thermal imaging method, which they’d previously pioneered, to trace the body’s brown fat reserves. The non-intrusive strategy encourages the group to find brown fat and evaluate its ability to create heat.
“From our previous work, we knew that brown fat is mainly located in the neck region, so we were able to image someone straight after they had a drink to see if the brown fat got hotter,” said Professor Symonds.
“The results were positive and we now need to ascertain that caffeine as one of the ingredients in the coffee is acting as the stimulus or if there’s another component helping with the activation of brown fat. We are currently looking at caffeine supplements to test whether the effect is similar.
“Once we have confirmed which component is responsible for this, it could potentially be used as part of a weight management regime or as part of glucose regulation program to help prevent diabetes.”
