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The existence of two different types of fat – or adipose tissue – in mammals has long been known: white fat, which stores calories and in excess results in obesity, and brown fat, which burns calories to generate energy and heat. Now scientists at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have confirmed the existence of a third, genetically distinct type of fat called “beige fat,” which they say is a potential therapeutic target for treating obesity.
A 2008 paper out of the Dana-Farber lab of Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, had proposed the existence of a third type of fat cell, and now Spiegelman and his team have become the first to isolate them and determine beige fat’s unique genetic profile. They found that beige fat shares much in common with brown fat. Both have the ability to burn large amounts of calories as they both contain energy-burning organelles called mitochondria, which contain iron and are responsible for the cells’ brown and beige hues.
"The therapeutic potential of both kinds of brown fat cells is clear," the authors say in their study, "as genetic manipulations in mice that create more brown or beige fat have strong anti-obesity and anti-diabetic actions."
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