How to lose weight by tricking your body

Lose weight by tricking body into thinking it's cold,

Being cold can burn calories but no one wants to freeze just to sculpt their muffin-top. Soon we may not have to. Researchers have identified immune molecules triggered by cold temperatures that make obese mice lose weight – without the need for the mercury to drop.

Humans and other mammals respond to cold in two ways. On the surface, we shiver to burn energy and produce a quick burst of heat. On a deeper level, as Ajay Chawla at the University of California, San Francisco, and his colleagues recently discovered, cold temperatures send signals to immune molecules called macrophages. They, in turn, release other molecules that convert energy-storing white fat into another type that burns energy.

Babies and some hibernating animals have lots of these energy-burning cells – known as brown fat – but it almost all disappears as people age. We now know that cold temperatures can trigger a "browning" of white fat in adults – converting some of their white fat into an intermediate form called beige fat.

It may seem counterintuitive for our bodies to use up fat stores when we get cold, but think of the white fat as the wooden walls of a log cabin – having them there is a good way to keep warm generally, but when the cold sets in, you're going to want firewood – brown or beige fat, to burn.