Brown adipose tissue is a type of connective tissue located in many humans and mammals. Brown adipose tissue is essential because adipose cells generate heat and are capable to accumulate nonshivering thermogenesis because they have a higher amount of mitochondria than white adipose tissue. Mammals and humans contain two types of fat, brown adipose tissue and white adipose tissue. Brown adipose tissue primary purpose is to turn food into body heat. Human newborns and hibernating mammals have an abundant amount of brown fat. White adipose tissue contains a single lipid droplet; however brown adipose tissue contains numerous lipid droplets and a great amount of mitochondria with high iron content, which is the reasoning to why it has a brownish color.
Brown fat also has more capillaries than white fat, because of its higher oxygen consumption. Brown fat also has many unmyelinated nerves, providing sympathetic stimulation to the fat cells. Since brown fat has higher oxygen utilization, it has a greater amount of capillaries than white fat. Brown fat also contains unmyelinated nerves, which orders sympathetic stimulation to fat cells. White adipose tissue is yellowish due to the presence of carotenoids.
It stores triglyceride within a single droplet and energy in the form of long chain of fatty acids. As it grows, it inhibits the function of insulin in the body. Brown adipose tissue maintains body temperature by generating heat its color comes from large number of mitochondria in cells. Brown fat only has a minimal effect on energy outflow as it reduces with increase in age. Brown fat is commonly found in shoulder blades and under the skin. The cytoplasm is present throughout the cell and the nucleus is found at the center of the cell.
Also brown adipose tissue is multilocular and white fat is unilocular. The fat around someone’s waist and thighs is the white adipose tissue; brown fat is primarily throughout the neck. White adipose tissue is developed from the storage of additional calories. The body converts excess calories into storage of energy in the form of white fat.
Brown adipose tissue produces heat by burning calories. Humans and mammals with high levels of brown fat take more time to start shivering from the cold than those with lower levels. Someone who is overweight has less brown adipose tissue than someone who is not overweight. Brown fat can also put in effect of keeping people thin. Newborns adipose tissue levels are much greater than older adults; therefore they do not shiver in the cold as easily.
Their body weight is contains about 5 percent of brown adipose tissue. Newborn’s brown fat progressively drops as they age. The brown fat in newborns is normally found on the upper half of the spine and towards the shoulders. The excessive amount of brown fat in infants keeps them warms since it assists to produce heat. Hypothermia is a decline in essential body temperature; which is a common source of death in premature newborns. However brown adipose tissue helps protect infants from hypothermia.
Heat production is initiated from brown adipose tissue when an organism needs additional heat, such as during arousal in relation to hibernation. When brown adipose tissue is activated, excessive amounts of lipids and glucose are impacted in the tissue. Brown adipose tissue obtains uncoupling protein-1 (UCP1), which regulates the evolutionary achievement of mammals as its thermogenesis improves newborn survival rates and is able to tolerate life even in cold environments. Body / Discussion Past research conducted on mice: The primary purpose of the research study, “Activating Brown Adipose Tissue for Weight Loss and Lowering of Blood Glucose Levels: A MicroPET Study Using Obese and Diabetic Model Mice”, is to obtain 18F-FDG microPET to observe the brown adipose tissue glucose metabolism in obese and diabetic mouse models in varied involvements. Also in this study, the experiment will exhibit the benefit of brown adipose tissue stimulation for weight loss and the decrease of blood glucose in diabetic mouse models.
Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is found in adults and it influences the metabolic rates in the body greatly. Catecholamine will be released from sympathetic nerve endings when BATs are stimulated. Catecholamine will then activate the adrenergic receptors that will cause an increase of uncoupling protein-1 (UCP1) in the inner membrane of mitochondria. This will burn glucose and fatty acids to create heat through a method called non-shivering thermogenesis. Since Blood glucose levels corresponds to BAT, BAT has been able to develop a way to cure obesity and diabetes mellitus (DM) through consuming fat in obese patients and lowering glucose levels in DM patients. Due to this research conducted in this experiment it is found that “18 F-FDG PET serves as a protective factor against DM”.
In this study, BAT glucose metabolism in obese and DM model mice using 18 F-FDG microуфрPET displayed that throughout the disease development and thyroid treatment that the active brown adipose changed. Therefore it is also found that obese and DM model mice exhibit worse BAT function in relationship to glucose metabolism. This is from the alterations in increased blood glucose levels for obese and DM model mice. Also the greater the blood glucose levels are, the higher inhibitory effect on the BAT glucose metabolism.
This verified that BAT activation could treat obesity and diabetes mellitus; it was shown that BAT to BRL37344 stimulation is much less in obese and DM mice in correlation to normal mice. Thyroid hormonal activation is also a common analysis used for brown adipose tissue thermogenesis. Numerous articles have conveyed the effect of thyroid hormone in treating obesity and the connection between thyroid hormone level and BAT function. This study conducted a two-week levothyroxine treatment that significantly increased the BAT glucose metabolism in the normal and obese mice, however not in the DM model mice. Therefore it is assumed that BAT in the DM mice is less responsive to levothyroxine involvement than in normal and obese mice.
Even though the brown adipose tissue in the normal and obese mice increased from the levothyroxine treatment, there are still no modifications found in blood glucose levels among any of the levothyroxine treatment groups and their linked control groups.
