Researchers at the United Kingdom’s University of Nottingham have concluded that drinking a cup of coffee could be the key to tackling obesity and diabetes.
The pioneering study, published on June 24 in the journal Scientific Reports, was also noted at EurekAlert, the online publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Researchers said their study is one of the first to be carried out in humans to find components which could have a direct effect on ‘brown fat’ functions, an important part of the human body which plays a key role in how quickly people burn calories as energy.
Brown adipose tissue, also known as brown fat, is one of two types of fat found in humans and other mammals. While initially only attributed to babies and hibernating mammals, it was discovered in recent years that adults can have brown fat too.
Its main function is to generate body heat by burning calories, as opposed to white fat, which is a result of storing excess calories.
“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,” according to Michael Symonds, a professor at the university’s school of Medicine 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,” he said. “However, until now, no one has found an acceptable way to stimulate its activity in humans.
“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,” he said.
The team used a thermal imaging technique, which they’d previously pioneered, to trace the body’s brown fat reserves. The non-invasive technique helps the team locate brown fat and assess its capacity to produce heat. They knew from previous research that brown fat is mainly located in the neck region, so were able to image people right after they had a drink to see if the brown fat got hotter, Symonds said.
Now researchers need to ascertain that caffeine as one of the ingredients in the coffee is acting as the stimulus or if there is another component helping to activate grown fat, he said.
Once researchers have determined which component is the stimulus, it could potentially be used as part of a weight management regime or as part of glucose regulation programs to help prevent diabetes.
