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These days it seems everyone is trying to get rid of fat, especially with swimsuit season approaching. But did you know that our bodies actually contain a good kind of fat that can help you lose weight?
Biochemist Sheila Collins, the latest addition to the faculty at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute at Lake Nona, is conducting research to better understand “good fat” and to figure out how to put it to work.
“There are actually two kinds of fat: white fat cells, which are the ones that come to mind when we think about fat, and brown fat cells, a kind of fat that acts sort of like a furnace,” generating heat and burning calories, Collins said.
A major goal for Collins and other scientists is to find safe ways to “switch on” brown fat, allowing people to lose weight by burning more calories.
“Dr. Collins is one of the few people worldwide who are unraveling the basis for how the so-called ‘good fat,’ or brown fat, is capable of burning excess calories,” said Dr. Daniel Kelly, director of Sanford-Burnham at the emerging “medical city” in southeast Orlando. “She brings this exciting project to the Sanford-Burnham site in Orlando with the long-term goal of developing new therapies for the treatment of obesity and its complications.”
