
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, December 23, 1993                   TAG: 9312230175
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

`BROWN FAT' MAY DEFINE BODY WEIGHT

An obscure substance in the body called "brown fat" seems to make much of the difference between being fat and being skinny, scientists said Wednesday.

Brown fat is a poorly understood tissue that seems to act the opposite of "white fat," the ordinary stuff of bulging waistlines. Brown fat burns energy rather than conserving it, said endocrinologist Bradford Lowell, at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston.

Based on experiments in genetically engineered mice, Lowell and his colleagues found that loss of brown fat leads to gross obesity, plus disorders such as diabetes that are commonly associated with obesity. A report on the experiments appeared Wednesday in the journal Nature. - Newsday

by CNB