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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		A synthetic implant that can produce energy-burning 'good' fat
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:02
	Publish Date:		2016-03-15 00:00:00
	Description:		Did you know we can produce an energy-burning ‘good fat’? It’s called brown fat and the catch is, adults don’t have a lot of it because it’s an adaptive process that’s related to exposure to cold temperatures. Kevin Tharp, a Ph.D student at the University of California, Berkeley explains that this ‘browning’ process occurs when white fat-derived cells evolve to become brown-fat-like, or beige fat cells. "This occurs for humans when they experience prolonged periods of cold. But when summer comes around, that beige fat that you had generated to survive through winter will actually dissipate because you have no need for it anymore." Tharp and his colleagues created a synthetic implant that can ‘brown’ for a short period of time. The hope is that this could someday be used therapeutically for obesity disorders. So far, it’s been tested in mice. "The implant lasts about three to four weeks and over that period of time, you can clearly see that there’s a reduction in terms of weight gain for the mice that received the implant and were fed the high fat diet."
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