If you have always wanted to literally turn fat into muscle,
your dream might soon come true.
Fighting Fat with Science
Based on studies published in the scientific journal, Nature, scientists have finally discovered how to control different types of fat and even regulate fat formation. This means the possibility of literally turning your pot belly into rippling abs is very real.
There's only one catch to this good news: only the 'good fat' can be transformed, not the 'bad fat'.
If you have no clue what this is, 'bad fat' is formed in your body due to over-eating and minimal exercise to burn off excess calories. On the other hand, 'good fat' is the fat you're born with, which actually helps burn calories and generate body heat.
Unfortunately, most of this 'good fat' disappears by the time you become an adult.
Wait a minute, how would turning 'good fat' into muscle help if there's very little of it in adults?
Well, trust the scientists to find a way around this: one study uncovered a process of promoting development of brown fat. The process simply involves introduction of a protein termed BMP-7 (bone morphogenetic protein 7). Therefore, after increasing the quantity of 'good' (brown) fat through such a process, all that's left to do is convert it into muscle.
As for turning fat into muscle, a factor called PRDM16 was found to be the switch that could transform fat into muscle. Knocking off this factor from brown fat cells, successfully converts them into muscle cells.
With such scientific discoveries, future weight loss programs could involve more than exercise and diet plans. Two ways these findings may be applied is through drugs or liposuction treatments.
Fat-Muscle Conversion Drugs
A drug may be developed that increases the quantity of good fat in the body. This would benefit many people who are obese or simply overweight. Compared to lean people, the overweight and obese have much less of the 'good' brown body fat.
Another way in which such a drug may work is by stimulating the small quantities of brown fat existing in the body. Once stimulated, such brown fat would burn extra calories in the body.
Contrary to past negative assumptions concerning body fat, brown fat actually has more similarity to muscle as opposed to white fat.
Brown fat would even burn white fat when activated, just as muscle would. In fact, a study carried out in Boston found brown fat to be more active within the body during the colder months. Children also have higher quantities of brown fat compared to adults and this helps keep them warm.
Although the actual quantity of brown fat in lean adults is very small (between 2 – 3 ounces for every 20 – 30 pounds of fat in a 150-pound person), the real capacity of burning calories is incredible: when maximally stimulated, 2 ounces of brown fat will burn 300 – 500 calories per day, which is equal to losing 1 pound per week!
Despite the potentially immense benefits, if such a drug is developed, it would still not replace proper dieting and exercising. Otherwise, you might end up in a cycle of taking drugs to reduce your ever-increasing body fat. Most probably, there may also be some side effects from overuse.
Liposuction and Transplanting Muscle-Converted Fat
Based on a research report in the science journal, Tissue Engineering, another method of turning fat into muscle could involve a process called autologous transplants. This means transplanting the muscle-converted fat cells into the person from whom they were removed through liposuction.
Such a method of transplanting is expected to have lower risk of tissue rejection, which may occur with donor transplants.
The process starts with liposuction, whereby fat is removed from the abdomen, thighs, back or arms. Rather than throwing away this fat, as usually happens when people do liposuction to cut fat; it's instead prompted to turn into muscle or even bone tissue. That's possible since the fat tissue is a good source for stem cells (cells which can be prompted to grow into a variety of body cell types).
By transplanting this new fat-derived muscle tissue back into the same person, he/ she would not only experience reduced body fat but also increased muscle mass.
Fingers crossed... let's hope to see this happen in our lifetime.
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