There have been two types of fat characterized in the body: white fat and brown fat. Typically, white fat is found around the abdominal area and people with excessive white fat have higher chances of developing diabetes, heart disease and other nasty co-morbidities of obesity. Brown fat is located more around the hips and brown fat actually burns many more calories than white fat and is felt to be a much more “healthy” fat. Brown fat cells contain many more mitochondria than white fat cells, and mitochondria (hey, did you stay away during high school biology?? laughing) are the part of the cell responsible for generating energy and respiration.
There are several prescription diabetes medications that have an effect of changing white fat to brown fat but these medications carry a significant number of side effects. Exercise is a very healthy method of converting white fat cells to brown cells.
Of great interest are reports of CBD (cannabidiol) producing a conversion of white fat to brown fat. CBD is one of the non-euphoric chemicals produced by the marijuana and hemp plants. CBD is being used to treat pain, anxiety, inflammation and poor sleep. More studies are needed to see if CBD can play a role in helping weight control, as having more brown fat will burn more calories than white fat, hence producing more weight loss.
Stay tuned: We will have a “Doctors and Pharmacies Only” high quality CBD available soon at the office. Look out for an e-mail to provide details.