Thermal imaging characterizes calorie-burning 'brown' fat

Nottingham, England--Scientists at The University of Nottingham are using thermal imaging to image areas of "brown" fat on the body. Also called brown adipose tissue, brown fat produces 300 times more heat than any other tissue in the body. Potentially the more brown fat one has, the less likely one is to lay down excess energy or food as white fat.

The IR thermal imager was used to assess the effect of a so-called "cool challenge" (placing the subject's feet or hand in water at 20°C) on the temperature of the supraclavicular (neck) region. The images measured heat production in young and old subjects and found a significant decline with age, indicating a loss of brown adipose tissue function with age.

Prof. Michael Symonds led a team of scientists and doctors at the university who developed the process. The research has just been published in the Journal of Pediatrics.

The university’s Early Life Nutrition Research Unit is doing research on how to manage brown adipose tissue using nutrition, exercise, and environmental and therapeutic interventions.

Thermogenic index for food labels
“This completely noninvasive technique could play a crucial role in our fight against obesity," says Symonds. " Potentially we could add a thermogenic index to food labels to show whether that product would increase or decrease heat production within brown fat. In other words whether it would speed up or slow down the amount of calories we burn.”

Dr. Helen Budge, clinical associate professor and reader in neonatology, said: “Babies have a larger amount of brown fat which they use up to keep warm soon after birth, making our study’s finding that this healthy fat can also generate heat in childhood and adolescence very exciting.”

Symonds, together with Budge and their team from the University’s School of Clinical Sciences, has shown that the neck region in healthy children produces heat. With the help of local schoolchildren, they found that this region, which is known to contain brown adipose tissue, rapidly switches on to produce heat. This capacity is much greater in young children compared with adolescents and adults. The researchers are now using their findings to explore interventions designed to promote energy use as heat and, thus, prevent excess weight gain in both children and adults.

Source: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/news/pressreleases/2012/july/fighting-obesity-with-thermal-imaging.aspx