Brown fat tissue - the body’s ‘good fat’ - serves as an organ which communicates with the brain through sensory nerves to inform how much fat we have and how much we’ve lost while the brown fat is generating heat, a study has found.

Pharmaceutical companies are trying to target brown fat and activate it more because it burns calories to help generate heat for our bodies and expend energy. White fat, however, stores energy for later and too much of it can increase the risk for health issues such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Researchers from Georgia State University found that brown fat tissue ‘talks back’ to the brain by activating sensory nerves. The sensory nerves from brown fat increased their activity in response to direct chemical activation and heat generation, according to the results that were published in The Journal of Neuroscience.

Johnny Garretson, study author and doctoral student in the Neuroscience Institute and Center for Obesity Reversal at Georgia State, said: “This is the first time that the function of sensory nerves from brown fat has been examined. Brown fat is an active organ that’s relatively important for metabolism and we’ve found a new pathway of its communication.”

“There is evidence that people with more brown fat have a better metabolism, lower instances of type two diabetes and are trimmer,” continued Garretson. “Knowing how to increase the amount of brown fat activity or increase the brown fat – that’s the future of trying to figure out yet another way to try and lose weight effectively and quickly.”

“As brown fat gets hotter and starts to generate heat – doing good things for our body – it increases our metabolism and helps us burn white fat,” added Garretson. “As it’s getting hotter, the lab found that it tells the brain it’s getting hotter. We think this is some type of feedback, like a thermostat, and as it gets hotter, it probably controls how the brain is talking back to it.”

This study therefore shows a feedback loop between brown fat tissue and the brain via the nervous system – which could become a useful tool in the fight against obesity.

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