Cold weather spells danger for bad hearts

• Autores: Douglas Heaven
• Localización: New scientist, ISSN 0262-4079, Nº. 2925, 2013, pág. 11
• Idioma: inglés
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • When it's cold people turn up the central heating. Human bodies do the same--burning brown fat to produce extra heat. But surprisingly this may increase the risk of heart disease. That is, if humans react to cold as mice do, by producing more artery-clogging cholesterol. In cold weather, white fat--itself a contributor to health problems--is converted into brown fat, which then breaks down and produces heat. Yihai Cao at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and his colleagues were interested to know whether converting white fat to brown might lead to a lesser degree of heart disease in mice prone to atherosclerosis--the build-up of fatty deposits in blood vessels.