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Showing posts from July, 2019

Wanna lose weight? Here's why everyone is excited about coffee’s effect on brown fat

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Last month, an analysis of two studies published in Nature’s Scientific Reports, confirmed what every avid coffee drinker knows---drinking coffee can help you lose weight. While the idea that caffeinated coffee can increase metabolism via increased thermogenesis is not new, what is new is the introduction of the acronym BAT into the discussion about diet and weight loss. What is brown fat? BAT stands for brown adipose tissue, also known as brown fat. There are two types of fat---brown fat (which is full of mitochondria that turn on a fat-burning mechanism in response to cold, releasing both heat and sugar) and white fat (which is mainly stored in the body in the form of large droplets). White fat is plentiful in adults, in contrast to brown fat, which is found in abundance in infants and hibernating mammals. Researchers at the University of Nottingham in the U.K. and at UCLA Medical School conducted two studies---one in mice (UK study) and one in human volunteer