Want to lose weight? New study reveals how your body can burn fat faster instead of storing it

A new study is putting focus on something many people don’t really think about when it comes to weight and metabolism — not just fat, but the kind of fat and how it works inside the body. Researchers have now identified a biological system that helps so-called brown fat actually do its job, and this could matter for how obesity is treated in the future.

The findings, published in Nature Communications, look at how brown fat becomes active and how it builds the internal support it needs to burn energy.

What makes brown fat different

Most of the fat in the human body is white fat. That is the type that stores extra energy and builds up over time, especially when calorie intake is high. Brown fat is different. It exists in much smaller amounts and is mainly linked to body temperature and metabolism.


When the body is exposed to cold conditions, brown fat gets switched on. It starts using glucose and fats and converts them into heat through a process called thermogenesis.

"During thermogenesis, all of that chemical energy is dissipated as heat instead of being stored in the body as white fat," said Farnaz Shamsi, assistant professor of molecular pathobiology at NYU College of Dentistry and the study’s senior author. "By rapidly taking up and using fuel sources from our bodies and the food that we eat, brown fat acts like a metabolic sink that draws in nutrients and prevents them from being stored."

This is why brown fat is often seen as helpful for metabolic health. It does not store energy, it burns it.

Why structure inside brown fat matters

What the study points out is something that earlier research did not look at closely. Brown fat needs proper internal networks to function. It depends on nerves and blood vessels.

Nerves connect it to the brain so it can respond when the body senses cold. Blood vessels bring in oxygen and nutrients and also help distribute the heat that is produced.

Without these networks, brown fat cannot work efficiently, even if it is present in the body.

The role of the SLIT3 protein

The researchers identified a protein called SLIT3 that seems to play a central role here. This protein is released by brown fat cells and then split into two parts. The study found that an enzyme called BMP1 is responsible for cutting SLIT3 into these fragments. Each fragment then performs a separate function. One helps in forming blood vessels, while the other supports the growth of nerve connections.

"It works as a split signal, which is an elegant evolutionary design in which two components of a single factor independently regulate distinct processes that must be tightly coordinated in space and time," noted Shamsi.

The team also identified a receptor called PLXNA1 that interacts with one of these fragments to guide nerve development.

In experiments on mice, removing SLIT3 or the PLXNA1 receptor led to clear problems. The animals struggled to maintain body temperature and were more sensitive to cold.

Further analysis showed their brown fat lacked proper nerve connections and did not have enough blood vessels. This meant the tissue could not function as it should.

Possible link to obesity in humans

To understand if this applies to people, researchers looked at fat tissue samples from over 15,000 individuals, including those with obesity. They focused on the gene responsible for producing SLIT3, which has been linked in earlier studies to obesity and insulin resistance.

The results suggested that SLIT3 activity may influence inflammation, fat tissue health, and how the body responds to insulin.

"That really got our attention, as it suggests that this pathway could be relevant in human obesity and metabolic health," said Shamsi.

Most current weight loss drugs, including GLP-1 based treatments, work by reducing appetite. They aim to make people eat less.

This research suggests another direction. Instead of focusing only on intake, it may be possible to increase how much energy the body burns by improving how brown fat functions.

"Our research shows that just having brown fat isn't enough -- you need the right infrastructure within the tissue for heat production," said Shamsi.