Lower Heating Can Reduce Weight

Added by Elivia DeVries on January 27, 2011

In cold winter nights, central heating is a blessing. But according to a new study done by researchers at University College London, keeping your house pleasantly warm can make you fat.

The concept created from this study is that when we are feeling cold our body tends to generate heat by shivering in extremely cold conditions. This results in burning of calories. However when the temperature is already warm the body would not make any extra effort to get comfortable.

In a report by New York Times, the human body even in mildly cold temperature tends to generate heat without shivering.

This process is called non-shivering thermo-genesis. In this process the body uses brown fat. Unlike regular fat that stores excess calories, brown fat uses extra calories when activated.

The researchers who have done this study, have also analyzed that in the recent years the indoor temperatures have increased as central heating is more freely available. Along with the increase in temperature we have seen increase in obesity in the recent years too.

Humans are born with deposits of brown fat which diminishes and is replaced by regular fat in adults.