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A tissue that burns oodles of flab
Wednesday September 07, 2011 08:30:46 AM,
IANS
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Sydney: 'Brown fat', a
wondrous tissue, can burn oodles of flab and help us stay slim and
trim. Brown fat is present in most, if not all, adults mainly just
behind the collarbone.
Too much of 'white fat' causes obesity. A gram of the substance
stores six kilocalories of energy, whereas the same quantity of
brown fat burns six kilocalories daily. Adults with brown fat are
slimmer than those without.
A team from Garvan Institute of Medical Research has shown that
brown fat can be grown in culture from stem cells biopsied from
adults, the journal Endocrinology reports.
We are all born with supplies of brown fat around our necks. It is
nature's way of helping to keep us warm as infants, according to a
Garvan statement.
Endocrinologists Paul Lee and Ken Ho, in collaboration with
Michael Swarbrick and Jing Ting Zhao at Garvan, successfully grew
brown fat from the biopsied tissue of patients.
?Although this is early work, it is a proof of concept study
showing that the growth
of brown fat cells is possible, using precursor cells taken from
adult humans, under appropriate stimulation,? said Paul Lee.
?Regardless of whether or not someone has lots of or little brown
fat, the precursor cells are universally present. Under the
appropriate growth factor and hormonal stimulation, the cells all
grow and differentiate into mature brown fat cells,? said Lee.
Using the PET-CT scans of close to 3,000 people, Lee recently
showed a striking negative correlation between brown fat and
weight.
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The 27th of
Ramadan (August 26, 2011 this year), "Laylet al-Qadr" (Night
of Power), is one of the holiest nights of the Islamic
calendar, the night when the Quran began to be revealed to the
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