Coffee can be a potential aid in fighting overweight thanks to its stimulating effect on brown fat. The type of fat that actually leads to higher burning of fats and sugars.
Coffee as a fat burner
We have extensively covered how coffee and the caffeine in it can help in weight loss in multiple articles. In those, we cited studies that looked at the effect of caffeine as a fat burner. One of the conclusions was that caffeine can increase resting energy expenditure by about 10 to 30 percent. Such effects are often attributed to the fact that caffeine is a neurostimulant, a substance that can put your brain into action mode. Recent research, however, suggests a new possibility: caffeine may reach its fat-burning effect through brown fat.Brown fat as a fat burner
We’ve written even more about brown fat here than about coffee and caffeine. This type of fat cell actually leads to higher burning of fats and sugars rather than serving as storage like normal ‘white’ fat cells. Brown fat can thus increase body temperature at low ambient temperatures. Especially in babies, it’s an important means to regulate body temperature. However, it’s now clear that brown fat doesn’t completely disappear as we grow older. Remnants are mainly found in the neck and back regions. A correlation has been shown between the amount of brown fat someone has and body weight. People with less brown fat generally have a higher BMI. It’s now also clear that white fat cells can behave as brown fat under certain conditions. Such fat cells are called ‘beige fat’ under those conditions. Science is trying to leverage this knowledge in the fight against obesity in various ways. One is by looking at ways to activate existing brown fat, and another is by stimulating the conversion of white fat to beige fat.Coffee as a stimulant of brown fat
Researchers at the University of Nottingham also sought ways to stimulate brown fat. This is the first study in humans to show that something like a cup of coffee can have a direct effect on our brown fat functions. 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. Michael Symonds, University of Nottingham Their research results were published last month in Scientific Reports [1]. It would be one of the first studies in humans to search for substances with a direct effect on the functioning of brown fat.From stem cell to human
In the first phase of the research, the team conducted a series of studies with stem cells to see if caffeine stimulated brown fat. Once the correct dosage was determined, they proceeded with studies involving humans. The team used a thermal imaging technique (which they had developed themselves) to map brown fat reserves in the body. It’s a non-invasive method that allows them to locate brown fat, but also to estimate the ability of brown fat to produce heat. This allowed them to determine what happened immediately after drinking a cup of coffee in brown fat. The results were positive.Coffee or caffeine?
In previous articles on the effect of caffeine on fat burning, but also on athletic performance, I mentioned that you can’t equate ‘caffeine’ and ‘coffee’. After all, coffee contains more than just caffeine. I already mentioned a study showing that resting energy expenditure increases, even after drinking decaffeinated coffee. Caffeine had a greater effect here, but it shows that you can’t attribute all the effects of coffee to caffeine and vice versa. Here too, the researchers emphasize this distinction. Further research should determine to what extent the effect on brown fat can be attributed to caffeine and to what extent other components of coffee contribute to this.References
- Ksenija Velickovic, Declan Wayne, Hilda Anaid Lugo Leija, Ian Bloor, David E. Morris, James Law, Helen Budge, Harold Sacks, Michael E. Symonds, Virginie Sottile. Caffeine exposure induces browning features in adipose tissue in vitro and in vivo. Scientific Reports, 2019; 9 (1)
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-45540-1
