Brown Fat and the Theory of Ageing
- Dr Swati Lodha
- Jun 20, 2021
- 3 min read
Updated: Aug 12, 2021
An unfortunate truth of modern medicine is that lifespan has increased more quickly than health span This inconsistency has several important complications since age-related diseases including type 2 diabetes, dementia, and cancers are responsible for the majority of healthcare costs in developed nations.
In recent years, the adipose tissue (body fat) has assumed significant importance in aging and age-related metabolic issues. Important and profound changes in the body fat that happen with aging when its relating to the distribution of the fat throughout the body and its composition (Structural make up). It has been suggested that progressive issues in body fat might be an important hallmark of the aging process.
Lately, there has been a swing in concentrating research efforts towards extending the health span. The reason being, the high maintenance cost of age-related diseases, the cost of finding a cure for one specific disease which would only slightly extend the lifespan, and the fact that people do not want to live a third of their lives weak with diseases.
Brown adipose tissue (BAT) also known as Brown fat, contains energy-producing mitochondria (Power centre of the cell), which provides it with its copper-brown colour. Brown fat cells are made up of many smaller droplets which the mitochondria can burn up to create heat
“So, what is brown fat? Brown fat is found in babies, because babies for the first few weeks cannot shiver, and instead they use brown fat to heat themselves, and that's how they stay warm. But it was thought that after we become little toddlers, we lose out brown fat. But people recently, maybe the last five years, have discovered that adults also have brown fat. And the way to turn it on, is to activate the brown fat from your existing fat just under the skin. And I'm not talking about walking out in a windy day for two minutes. That's probably not going to do it. What you need to do is to shock the system. You need to expose the skin to really tough cold.” says Dr. David Andrew Sinclair, an Australian Biologist and Professor of Genetics and Co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Centre for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School.
The possibility that BAT can shield the body against the aging process has been suggested by several findings. BAT in humans is reactive to cold temperatures, and this reactiveness is weakened during aging. When exposed to a temperature of 19°C for 2 hours, 17 out of 32 young subjects and only 2 out of 24 older subjects showed an increase in the glucose uptake into body fat.
The evidence that BAT can protect against multiple age-related diseases is substantial, albeit mostly circumstantial. There are several arguments suggesting so. People with low BAT levels are prone to excess build-up of white fat and weight gain, causing obesity. Obesity is strongly related with the risk of several major age-related diseases including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and some cancers. Dietary restriction, which increases levels of BAT, protects against diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancers and possibly neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease.
While preventing excessive weight gain and fat build-up is likely a major mechanism by which BAT activity might protect against age-related disease, another mechanism might involve enhancing the body’s response to stress. Research shows that it is generally beneficial for the human body to increase BAT levels, there being several established ways to do so
Changing lifestyle habits and controlling the diet, stressing the body in irregular patterns, drugs that can excite the body into forming BAT, introducing brown fat cells in muscle, and transplantation of brown fat cells are all means by which BAT mass and thermal activity can be increased in the body, improving health.
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