Instead of Twitter-crying about your landlord forgetting to turn your one wheezing radiator on, you should be thanking him for getting you ready for swimsuit season. New studies have revealed the existence of brown fat in humans, which burns calories "like a furnace" when the body gets cold. Look for Brown Fat Smoothies soon at a McDonald's near you.
According to the Times, brown fat was initially believed to only exist in rodents, who cannot shiver and need another way of burning fat to keep warm. But scientists, using body scanners that detected glucose-burning on cold people, discovered that we also possess brown fat. "We have proof that this tissue burns calories—yes, indeed it does," Dr. André Carpentier, a lead author of one of the studies says. "But what happens in the long term is unknown."
Aw, c'mon doc, can we burn fat doing nothing or what? Dr. Carpentier cautions that the rodents with a lot of brown fat also "have the worst bone density we have ever seen." Pssh, wake us up when you write a study entitled Hotties Care About Bone Density. "There is still a lot of research to do before this strategy can be exploited clinically and safely."
Of course, there is also another type of brown fat that scientists say is mixed in with normal white fat, and is activated during exercise. But that sounds hard. Can Barry just announce tonight that he's turning the national thermostat to 50?
