A study published in Nature Communications explained the mechanism by which obese or overweight people would struggle to lose weight, and how to manage to lose weight if all the efforts between exercise and diet have never produced lasting results. The answer would lie in thermogenesis, or in the thermogenic capacity of our body, which allows us to burn calories to produce heat / energy . We know that the body has this ability and that it is able to regulate it through brown fat, a particular type of thin and dark pink / brown pigmented fat, which thin people have to a greater extent than fat ones, and which is activated to regulate the body temperature, for example in cold weather.

Adults have less brown fat than children , but in general those with more brown fat tend to have less white fat, the commonly understood “fat”. So those who have more brown fat have greater thermogenesis, which means they burn more calories ingested. This also explains why people with fast metabolisms also have a higher body temperature than those with slow metabolisms. Now, according to the scientists, in fat people, thermogenesis is impaired by a protein, which they also found in humans as well as mice, and which would be called sLR11. People who have higher values ​​of this protein tend to be fatter, but if you lower the level, some of the white fat converts to brown, and you tend to lose weight.