Although we all need some fat to survive, too much of the wrong kind (white fat) is extremely damaging. However, having more of the good kind - that's brown fat - has long been known to be a bonus.
And now new research has found that having detectable brown fat means people are far less likely to suffer cardiac and metabolic conditions, including from type 2 diabetes and coronary artery disease.
Publishing their results in Nature Medicine, the team, led by Paul Cohen, have been able to add to the body of work looking at how important the role of brown fat is.
Cohen, the Albert Resnick, M.D., Assistant Professor and senior attending physician at The Rockefeller University Hospital, said: "For the first time, it reveals a link to lower risk of certain conditions. These findings make us more confident about the potential of targeting brown fat for therapeutic benefit."
The new research is the largest study of its kind and focused on 52,000 participants. Brown fat is notoriously hard for scientists to study as it only shows up on PET scans, a special type of medical imaging.
However, the study's first author Tobias Becher realised cancer sufferers have PET scans, and that radiologists take note of any brown fat found, to make sure it's not mistaken for a tumour.
"We realised this could be a valuable resource to get us started with looking at brown fat at a population scale," Becher said.
Another interesting result the new research threw up was the fact that obese patients with brown fat are less likely to suffer from heart and metabolic conditions that are generally associated with extra weight.
"The natural question that everybody has is, 'What can I do to get more brown fat?'" Cohen said. "We don't have a good answer to that yet, but it will be an exciting space for scientists to explore in the upcoming years."
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