Stimulation of Diet-Induced Thermogenesis by Cold-Exposure (BAT&DIT)

Pennington Biomedical Research Center

Status

Completed

Conditions

Thermogenesis

Brown Adipose Tissue

Treatments

Other: Cold Exposure

Study type

Interventional

Funder types

Other

Identifiers

NCT01898949

PBRC 10031

Details and patient eligibility

About

Human fat tissue is essentially white fat, the main function of which is to store excess energy intake, and to release it when necessary. Brown fat is far less abundant and is present in the body to burn fat (and thus energy) to generate heat to maintain body temperature around 96 degrees. This phenomenon is called thermogenesis. When humans are exposed to cold on a chronic basis, brown fat expands and becomes more active, and consequently burns more energy. The amount of brown fat is higher during winter, and daily short (20 minutes) exposures to cold might be sufficient to induce its activity.

We hypothesized that daily short term (20 minutes) exposure to a cold environment (4 °C) for four weeks increases adaptive BAT-mediated thermogenesis. CIT and DIT will be increased proportionally (the increase in CIT and DIT will be correlated).

Full description

This study will have 3 phases:

Phase 1: baseline testing. This phase takes place at the beginning of the study to establish several physical, physiological and metabolic studies and includes measures of height, weight, body composition, sedentary and resting metabolic rate in a metabolic chamber as well as your metabolic and cardiac responses to cold.

Phase 2: cold exposure (treatment) phase. This phase is initiated immediately after phase 1 and will last 4 weeks. Each work day (Monday to Friday) subjects will have to spend 20 minutes in a cold room wearing light clothes.

Phase 3: post-treatment testing. The same physiological and metabolic studies measured at baseline will be repeated over 3 days.

Enrollment

9 patients

Sex

Male

Ages

18 to 35 years old

Volunteers

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

Men between the ages of 18-35 years, inclusive
Body mass index (BMI) between 18.5 and 25.0 kg/m2, inclusive, with a stable weight (<2kg variation) within the past 3-6 months
Non smokers
On no medication or recreational drugs
Healthy as assessed by a standard self-reported screening health questionnaire
Provide written informed consent

Exclusion criteria

Smokers
Individuals taking any medications
Individuals taking any stimulants
Individuals taking beta-blockers
Individuals with diabetes or impaired fasting glucose as defined by theADA criteria, i.e. fasting plasma glucose concentration ≥ 5.6 mmol/L (100 mg/dl).
Individuals with chronic alcohol consumption (> 3 drinks per day) or drug abuse
Individuals unable to abstain from caffeinated beverage or alcohol the days of study
Individuals with pacemakers or defibrillators
Individuals with history of heart disease or history of stroke
Individuals having a significant recent loss or gain of weight
Individuals involved in regular (> 3 times per week), intense competitive sporting activities.
Individuals involved in intensive exercise activity.