Plant-Based Compound May Protect Against Weight Gain
lifescience reports that a plant based compound triggers the conversion of white fat into brown fat. The difference between white and brown fat is, that while white fat stores energy, brown fat is used to generate heat to keep the body warm. Consequently mice, when treated with this compound, generated more heat when they were exposed to cold air and therefore burned more calories.
Author Comment: I am skeptical. Articles, which claim some breakthrough regarding obesity, are available a dime a dozen. Usually directly or indirectly some magical compound is mentioned, which if marketed helps for sure... the account of the maker of this compound. Before I'd trust in pharmaceutical solution, I'd like to see an explanation for an effect, which is described here:
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101124/full/news.2010.628.html Not only humans are getting fatter and fatter, but lab animals are too, despite a very controlled dietary plan which often does not change for years.
Author Comment: I am skeptical. Articles, which claim some breakthrough regarding obesity, are available a dime a dozen. Usually directly or indirectly some magical compound is mentioned, which if marketed helps for sure... the account of the maker of this compound. Before I'd trust in pharmaceutical solution, I'd like to see an explanation for an effect, which is described here:
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/101124/full/news.2010.628.html Not only humans are getting fatter and fatter, but lab animals are too, despite a very controlled dietary plan which often does not change for years.
I think the results in this article may be flawed, but also interesting. The interesting part (for me) is that they give an actual
mechanism. Not just 'this compound burns your fat', but 'this compound turns white fat into brown fat' and brown fat
is burned when it is cold. <--- simplified and ignored that this result was only received with mice. I'd be even more happy,
when there was some hint how or why berberine is doing what it seems to do in mice.
However, with what we know today, such a singular result can never be satisfying. We know by far not enough about the reasons of obesity. Come on... only ignorant people still believe in the simple formula: The fatties are too lazy and eat too much.
Other results hinted that in some people a virus infection may play a role in body weight. Gut bacteria may play a role. Some experiments were able to show weight reduction by a gut bacteria transplant (*yuck*).
But for me the best hint that there are still unknown mechanisms is the weight increase of lab animals.