The origins of brown fat cells that could help fight obesity have been revealed. Researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston have recently discovered that there’s a “good” protein that could fight against obesity by burning calories. It is also responsible for helping us keep warm. The protein, called BMP-7, is said to be able to prevent overweight. It also appears to be an element in helping prevent or retard the development of Type II diabetes. The author of the study is Ya Hua Tseng, an assistant investigator in the Obesity and Hormone Action division of Joslin Section of the Diabetes Center.  They found a protein important for bone growth, which helped promote the development of brown fat tissue in mice. “We hope this study can be translated into applications to help treat or prevent obesity,” Tseng told Reuters.

Reporting in the Aug. 21 issue of the journal Nature, these “good” fat cells can be generated from unspecialized precursors that routinely spawn skeletal muscle.

Another team led by Dana-Farber's Bruce Spiegelman, PhD, showed that a previously known molecular switch, PRDM16, regulates the creation of brown fat from immature muscle cells. They used a single molecular switch to turn immature muscle cells into brown fat cells in the lab.

Apparently there are two different types of fat tissue: “bad” fat and “good” fat. The first type acts as an energy store, while the latter helps to burn calories in order to generate body heat, which is crucial to babies. This type of fat unfortunately disappears by adulthood. Their brown color is due to their being rich in energy burning structures called mitochondria.