Influence of exercise type on human brown fat: Assessment by MRI

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K13041
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Applied health science
• Research Institution: University of Tsukuba
• Principal Investigator: SATOH Makoto 筑波大学, 国際統合睡眠医科学研究機構, 教授 (50242409)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): 仙石 泰雄 筑波大学, 体育系, 研究員 (30375365) ; 岡本 嘉一 筑波大学, 医学医療系, 講師 (90420083)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): OKAMOTO Yoshikazu 筑波大学, 医学医療系, 講師 (90420083)
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 褐色脂肪細胞 / 運動 / 寒冷刺激

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is known to increase from cold-exposure, but its effect on exercise stimulation has not been clarified. The present study compared the athletes that train on land and under water, and sedentary controls to elucidate how the differences in chronic exercise types change the BAT quantity from MRI analysis. The results showed that the BAT amount was significantly higher among swimmers than the athletes that train on land or the control group. Furthermore, BAT amount was greater during winter than in summer for all groups, but the amount of change was smaller among swimmers. This suggested that continuous swimming exercise stimulation may be an effective means to increase and maintain the BAT.

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