Scientists found a way to make fat cells "burn"

A revolution in the fight against excess weight: American scientists have discovered how to make fat cells literally "burn themselves from the inside." The discovery, published in the prestigious journal Nature Metabolism, could transform approaches to treating obesity.

Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College made an unexpected discovery: white fat cells — the very ones that accumulate those unwanted pounds — are capable of transforming into real "furnaces," burning their own reserves and releasing heat.

For a long time, white adipose tissue was perceived exclusively as a "warehouse" for storing energy. Thermogenesis — heat production — was considered the prerogative of brown fat. However, the new research shatters these notions.

The mechanism turned out to be linked to mitochondria — tiny "power plants" inside cells. Under normal conditions, they convert fats and sugars into ATP molecules — the universal cellular "fuel." But under certain conditions, a disruption occurs: energy is not stored but instead almost entirely dissipated as heat.

The main protagonist of this process turned out to be the enzyme AAC — a close relative of proteins that provide heat production in brown fat. It is precisely this enzyme that, when interacting with released fatty acids, triggers the "self-burning" mechanism of white adipocytes.

Preclinical trials on obese mice yielded impressive results: the animals showed increased body temperature and elevated energy expenditure. Notably, the effect persisted even when brown fat activity was blocked and muscle shivering was absent.

The discovery gains particular value against the backdrop of limitations of current weight loss medications. Most of them work through appetite suppression and are often accompanied by undesirable side effects. Targeted activation of thermogenesis in white fat could become a fundamentally new and gentler tool in medicine's arsenal.