--- title: Burning Fat: Scientists Report New Way to Burn Fat More Efficiently description: The good news is that you can turn your body fat into a super-burner that’s better at melting away calories and lowering blood sugar. But it takes a lot to make the switch canonical: https://time.com/3981057/body-fat-that-burns-calories-more-quickly-2/ author: Alice Park article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-08-04T16:00:32.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:41:26.925Z article:section: Health og:title: Scientists Report New Way to Burn Fat More Efficiently og:description: The good news is that you can turn your body fat into a super-burner that’s better at melting away calories and lowering blood sugar. But it takes a lot to make the switch og:url: https://time.com/3981057/body-fat-that-burns-calories-more-quickly-2/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1edf4ce31c2d9600/69885d738e06013e52461a82/gettyimages-506115021.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5433 og:image:height: 3056 og:image:alt: 506115021 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Scientists Report New Way to Burn Fat More Efficiently twitter:description: The good news is that you can turn your body fat into a super-burner that’s better at melting away calories and lowering blood sugar. But it takes a lot to make the switch twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt1edf4ce31c2d9600/69885d738e06013e52461a82/gettyimages-506115021.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Kind of Body Fat Burns Calories More Quickly > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's weekday health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free weekday newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-health-2026q3/newsletters?i=ab45f096-0178-4675-bf36-eec50d0cad00&cr=time-nl-health-2026q3-v1) ## Video: The Truth About Fat [Watch (HLS stream): The Truth About Fat](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/uYGhfNfS.m3u8) (5:15)  _Published 2014-06-12. When you want to lose weight or get healthy, what is the first thing you would normally cut from your diet? If you said fat, you're not alone_  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Aug 4, 2015 4:00 PM UTC  Overweight businessman with copy space Overweight businessman with copy space Peter Dazeley—Getty Images  by [Alice Park](https://time.com/author/alice-park/)  ## Alice Park Senior Correspondent Aug 4, 2015 4:00 PM UTC For years researchers have been tantalizing us with news of a [mysterious type of fat](http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/26/how-now-brown-fat-scientist-are-onto-a-new-way-to-lose-weight/) that can burn through calories and keep blood sugar levels in check. Unlike white fat that tends to sit in deposits where we least want them, this other kind of fat—called brown fat—is scant inside the human body. While newborns tend to have more brown fat, the average adult harbors barely two ounces of the stuff. As little of it as we have, recent studies have suggested that brown fat can be triggered under the right conditions. And now, in a new paper, scientists report for the first time that it’s possible to turn white fat into brown fat — or at least something that acts like brown fat and burns up more calories. Researchers had [accomplished the feat in animals](http://time.com/3482856/brown-fat-weight-loss/), but the latest study, published in the journal _Cell Metabolism_, is the first to describe the phenomenon in people. The research was conducted by Ladros Sidossis from the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston and his colleagues. While previous studies showed that cold temperatures could activate brown fat in healthy people, none demonstrated that the stress of the frigid exposure could transform white fat into brown fat. Speculating that it would take an extreme and continued stress on the body for that to happen, Sidossis decided to study brown fat stores in burn patients; as director of the metabolism unit at Shriners Hospitals for Children, he knew that burn injuries that cover more than 30% of the body caused the body’s stress response to remain high for weeks. Indeed, when he compared white fat samples taken from the patients soon after their injury to those of healthy controls, he found markedly higher signs of a revved-up energy process in these cells that showed the white fat was acting more like brown fat. Confirming the finding further, when he compared the burn patients’ white fat cells soon after their injury and then a month later, he found signs that the white fat had reverted back to its original state again as the patients began recovering and their stress response waned. Of course, Sidossis is in no way suggesting that burns are a strategy for enhancing brown fat stores. What’s important is the fact that the study showed it’s possible to make white fat burn more calories, something that could be the start of a new way of addressing obesity and diabetes. “The next step is to find the mechanism of how this is happening,” he says. “Then we can find drugs that mimic this effect to turn white fat into a more metabolically active form to help normalize weight and blood sugar.” Scientists working with animals are already heading down that path; they’ve identified some 40 agents that might be useful in convincing white fat to work more efficiently. Now that there’s evidence that the process does occur in people — albeit under extreme conditions — studying those substances further to see if they can accomplish the same transformation of white fat, without the stress, seems worthwhile. **MORE:** [This New Drug Turns ‘Bad’ White Fat Into ‘Good’ Brown Fat](http://time.com/3736916/white-brown-fat-weight-loss-study-gc-1/) ### See the 10 Healthiest Cities to Live in America  Honolulu, Hawaii Best Place for Lifelong Health The heavenly climate helps, but the key to well-being here also includes enviable health care and a rich cultural tradition of looking out for one another. Colin Anderson—Blend Images/Corbis  San Francisco Bay Area, Calif. Best Place for Eating Right. The "farm to table" movement began here. The region's bounty of produce and year-round growing season make eating healthy—and local—a natural. Getty Images  Burlington, Vt. Best Place for Raising Healthy Kids This New England city offers great schools, excellent pediatric care, loads of culture and limitless options for healthy outdoor fun all year long. Matt Hogan/www.mphoganphoto.com  Silicon Valley, Calif. Best Place for Workplace Wellness With treadmill desks, meetings on bikes, time off for creativity, and gobs of organic food, tech titans are reinventing how to stay healthy on the job. Jim Wilson—The New York Times/Redux  Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn. Best Place for Aging Well Yes, it can be cold. But with a plethora of stimulating activities and a robust web of support, the Twin Cities prove that growing old doesn't mean slowing down. Getty Images  Denver and Boulder, Colo. Best Place for Keeping Fit The urge to get outside and get moving is contagious in these Rocky Mountain cities, where physical challenge is built into the landscape. Celin Serbo—Aurora Photos/Corbis  Plano, Texas Best Place for Staying Safe Once a rural outpost, this booming, diverse city has kept its small-town vibe, thanks in part to a police force and community that knows how to work together. Misty Keasler—Redux for TIME  Portland, Ore. Best Place for a Healthy Environment Small, walkable neighborhoods, 300 miles of bike paths, and urban policies that foster active living and sustainability make for one clean, green city. Getty Images  Boston, Mass. Best Place for Health Care This history-rich city is home to some of the nation's most advanced medical institutions and policies that help ensure that quality care is available to all. K.C. Cohen—Courtesy of Boston Children's Hospital  Provo and Orem, Utah Best Place for Spiritual Well-Being A stunning Rocky Mountain backdrop and a tight-knit population that lives its faith contribute not only to this region's serenity but also to lower rates of disease. Getty Images ## Transcript [ MUSIC ] There's something we all enjoy about staying for dinner. You ever thought why? What was on your dinner table when you were younger? Chances are it had a lot to do with, what your doctor was telling you is healthy. Building a strong healthy body is like building a strong, beautiful building. If the foundation is weak, the whole building will be weak. It takes five fingers to point the way to healthful eating habits. Well, here we go. For years, the government published dietary guidelines. Meant to keep Americans healthy. There's a great deal to learn. Tell me what you eat, and I'll tell you what you are. The body needs certain substances to live and grow. And remember, your body isn't just like an automobile. For years, the key measures of those guidelines were the same, cut fat from your diet. The committee's original report urged Americans to reduce their risk of heart attack. By reducing their intake of cholesterol down to the equivalent of about one egg a day. And those guidelines had an effect. From 1977 to 2012, per capita consumption of eggs fell by 9 %, beef by 37 %, whole milk by 72 %. Calories from saturated fat fell, while calories from supposedly safe carbohydrates increased. As one expert put it, it was a vast nutritional experiment. With nearly a million American's a year dropping dead from heart disease in the mid 80s, we had to try something. Nearly four decades later results are in. The experiment was a failure. Americans are sicker than they've ever been before. The prevalence of diabetes has gone up 157 % from 1980 to 2011. Nearly one in ten Americans now has the disease. Causing the public health system $ 245 billion a year. Heart disease is still the number one killer in the country. Americans are as obese as ever. So, what went wrong? Good old granola. Great for taste but loaded with fat. It doesn't take much of imagine a leap to assume that fat would make us fat, clog our arteries and raise the risk of heart disease. It turns out that saturated fat is a lot more complicated than we think. Carbohydrates and fats are nutrients. Like man, you need nutrients to live and grow. [ MUSIC ] Firstly, there are two kinds of cholesterol. LDL which is linked to heart disease and HDL which can be protective. Fats that course through the blood are known as triglycerides and high levels of those are linked to heart disease. Saturated fat raises LDL cholesterol but also raises HDL. Moving LDL buildup on arterial walls. So raising both, makes saturated fat a cardio wash. One key piece of information is that LDL seems to come in two forms. Large and fluffy, small and dense. Those smaller particles are linked to heart disease, while the larger ones are mostly benign. Saturated fat increases the number of large particles. The opposite happens with carbs. I don't get it. Researchers have long since discovered the kind of fats found in olives and in fish like salmon. Are actually heart protective. Now it turns out the fats found in meat and dairy, aren't as bad as we feared before. So that means by focusing so much on fats. We may actually have been making ourselves sicker. So, she brings up the subject of reduced- fat cheese. It's a fat- free [ UNKNOWN ]. Fat- free, cholesterol free. Low- fat granola. Reduced- fat Kettle chips. Reduced- fat Chips Ahoy. Lowfat cottage cheese. Non- fat yogurt is the perfect example. The thinking for consumers was simple. Fat was dangerous. This product had no fat. Therefore, it must be healthy. It's non- fat, which means less calories. [ MUSIC ] But amid the confusion about fat, we end up replacing it in our diets with sugars and carbohydrates, which meant our calorie intake was actually going up. When carbs and things like corn and white bread are ingested into your body, their converted into sugars. Those sugars convert to insulin cuz it's fat cells go into storage overdrive, leading to weight gain. Since fewer calories are then left to fill the body, you begin to feel hungry it means our metabolism begins to slow down in effort to save energy, we eat more and we gain more weight, never quite feeling full. As this process repeats, our cells become more resistant to insulin, which causes us to gain more weight, which increases insulin resistance in a vicious circle. Cut calories, and people just get hungrier. Obesity, diabetes, high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol can all follow. Study after study has found it's very difficult to lose weight on a very low- fat diet. Possibly because fat and meat can produce a sense of satiety, that's hard to achieve with carbs, making it easier to simply stop eating. But it isn't just the increase in carbs that affects us. These processed, low saturated fat alternatives, come loaded with sugars, salt, preservatives, and even some unhealthy fats. So what's the real alternative? As one extra puts it, the cold hard truth about diet is that the only way to eat well, is to eat well. You'll be happier and you'll be healthier, if you focus on real whole foods, whether they have fat or not. Got it. And thanks, we'll never forget what we've learned. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3981057/body-fat-that-burns-calories-more-quickly-2/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3981057/body-fat-that-burns-calories-more-quickly-2/"},"headline":"This Kind of Body Fat Burns Calories More Quickly","datePublished":"2015-08-04T16:00:32.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:41:26.925Z","description":"The good news is that you can turn your body fat into a super-burner that’s better at melting away calories and lowering blood sugar. 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