As you may have heard, researchers have now identified brown fat in adults...why is this significant?
1) We used to think brown fat was in babies only. It acts as a temperature regulator for babies; an evolutionary response to extreme cold. Now it's been found in adults -- and more of it in lean adults, at that.
2) Now drugs and treatments can target the brown fat to stimulate its function, which is to expend energy, according to an NIH researcher quoted in the article.
That's all we know for now, but it'll be interesting to see how pharmaceuticals approach this discovery. For the meantime, I'm more concerned with my *post*baby fat(!)
