Fat could cure diabetes and obesity, sound strange but true

Fats in body can be bad or good. There are some kinds of fats that can be actually good for a person. Joslin Diabetes Center has revealed that the good fat, which was previously believed to be present in babies alone, is now found in adults too and is metabolically active in the same way.

Aaron Cypess, M.D., Ph.D., a Research Associate and Staff Physician at Joslin, says, “Not only did we find active brown fat in adult humans; we found important differences in the amount of brown fat based on a variety of factors such as age, glucose levels and, most importantly, level of obesity.” These good fats can help keep a person healthy and combat diseases.

What actually is this good fat? The good fat is brown fat, which can help in burning calories and utilizing energy. The discovery that brown fat is active in adults indicates that this could mainly be of use in the treatment of type 2 diabetes and obesity. The main role of brown fat was believed to be burning energy in order to generate heat. It was also found that younger patients had a higher likelihood of having higher amount of brown fat in them.

Ronald Kahn, M.D., senior author and head of the Joslin Section on obesity and hormone action and Mary K. Lacocca, professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, says, “What is of particular interest is that individuals who were overweight or obese as measured by higher Body Mass Index (BMI) were less likely to have substantial amounts of brown fat.

Likewise, patients taking beta-blockers and patients who were older were also less likely to have active brown fat. For example, individuals both over 64 years of age and with high BMI scores were six times less likely to have substantial amounts of brown fat.”