WHAT’S NEXT in Weight Control?

This is another message from Dr. Robert J. Brueck, a Board Certified plastic surgeon practicing in Fort Myers and Cape Coral, Florida. Dr. Brueck writes on subjects related to health and cosmetic surgery. His web site is located at Beauty-by-Brueck.com

What's next? PRDm16?

It may soon be on a store shelf near you! This MAY be the missing link in the “battle of the bulge”.

What is it?

It is a protein discovered by Dr. Bruce Spiegelman at the Dana Farber cancer center in Boston. This protein regulates production of brown fat in the body. Brown fat is very prominent in young babies and is utilized to help regulate body temperature. As we “mature” we lose most of our brown fat.

Brown fat is good fat because it is a calorie burner, ie: it consumes many more calories than normal fat.

If we could take white fat cells and convert them to brown fat cells we could “burn more calories and hence, lose weight”. White fat cells basically store energy ie: fat, whereas brown fat cells burn calories to heat the body.

Research is now being conducted to “stimulate” production of brown fat in our bodies which would lead to increased caloric use and hence, we would lose weight.

It is as simple as that.

So we hope these drugs will turn up on a shelf near you in the not too distant future.