Staying warm? You might gain weight!

Another news for those who want to be in good physical shape.

Dutch researchers claim that maintaining a slight coolness in the home and office can become your additional assistant in the fight against excess weight and obesity.

The head of the study, Dr. Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt, professor of human biology at the Maastricht University Medical Center, wanted to find out whether the cold stimulates the processes of energy exchange in the body.

In other words, do people who live in cooler temperatures burn more calories.

When the temperature drops, we usually start shivering. Scientists consider this reaction of the body to be a natural short-term response to the cold, thanks to which a person can protect himself from hypothermia.

Shivering stimulates the emission of heat in the body, as a result of which we feel warm.

Scientists in Japan have done an experiment, the results of which showed that staying in a room at a temperature of 17 degrees for two hours a day for six weeks, reduces the amount of fat in the body.

A new type of adaptation to the cold has also recently been discovered – the so-called thermogenesis without shivering, in which the emission of body heat is also stimulated strong> but this happens quite a bit slower than usual.

“In most elderly people, the rate of this thermogenesis increases by 5 to 30% in response to staying in a cold room,” the scientists note.

«In this way, this process can have a significant impact on energy exchange and burning of calories, resulting in improved metabolism ».

The study by the Dutch scientists showed that people gradually acclimatize to colder conditions.

Participants in the experiment, who spent six hours a day at a temperature of 15 o C, after 10 days began to feel more comfortable.

“There is evidence that humans, as well as rodents, burn more calories in the cold to maintain a normal body temperature,” says Dr. Mitchell Lazar, head of the endocrinology department at the University of Pennsylvania.

So how much time do we need to spend in a cool room to burn, say, a hundred calories? Scientists believe that it is too early to talk about such calculations.

«Our results show that adaptation to the cold leads to an increase in energy expenditure», says Dr. Lichtenbelt.

«There is no doubt about these data. Until now, we have not known how to use these results in real life”.

Scientists plan to conduct long-term trials using this methodology. Participants in the experiment will live in cool rooms, and their weight will be strictly monitored. “We will control not only the weight of the participants, but also their basic vital signs,” adds Dr. Lichtenbelt.

“It will be very interesting to conduct such a study among people who are trying to get rid of extra pounds, and to find out if their results improve,” adds the specialist.

Scientists also discovered that acclimatization in a cold environment can also lead to an increase in the amount of brown fat tissue in the body.

Unlike white fat, brown fat does not lead to storage, but to burning calories. It is possible that this type of fat can influence weight loss and normalization of metabolism in the human body.