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Language: en
how do people melt the fat Dr Lee we are
we're living in a time now where half
the population almost is not just
overweight but obese how do we solve
this you know there's a lot to unpack in
that question uh and I want I like to
start by basically saying that my book
Eat to beat your diet the title is a
little bit of a trick title because it's
not a diet book it's kind of an
anti-diet book to say how we can
actually improve our metabolis is m
fight body fat and actually Elevate our
health which is the real goal our Inner
Health without ever having to go on a
diet so saying that I can tell you that
the whole idea about body fat it's
loaded the word fat is actually a real
loaded term in our society it's um
associated with a lot of negative
connotations right um when you think
about fat it's usually something not
that you don't want even if you walk by
the butcher section in the grocery store
you see that rind of fat around a steak
Yeah you know you rather not have that
right um but it turns out and this is
what I write about that there's a new
science to the body that gives us new
appreciation of what fat actually does
and how that connects to our metabolism
in ways that we never thought actually
existed so that fat itself is not a
harmful entity when you've got too much
and you got obesity it is harmful but up
until that point actually fat believe it
or not is a human organ it's an organ as
important is your pancreas your liver
your spleen your heart your lungs and it
actually fulfills very very important
purposes for our everyday Health
connected to our
metabolism and most people think about
fat as something that grows on you and
when you see it you don't like it so we
all went through this we've all gone
through this right get up in the morning
take a shower step out of the shower out
of the corner of your eye you see in the
mirror a lump or a bump that you don't
want to be there right that's what makes
you think about body fat but actually
most people don't think about the fact
that body fat actually existed before we
were born and that leads us I'm a
scientist so I like to ask origin
stories where does fat come from and fat
starts in the womb wow it starts in the
womb and certainly the fat that we are
packaged with in utero it's not bad in
any way it's probably probably is is
performing a a vital function for Life
yeah let me explain that to you so when
your mom's egg met your dad's sperm and
they got together formed ball of cells
is going to be the future you right when
they started to make tissue that will
ultimately be your organs the first
tissue that got laid down were your
blood vessels because every organ needs
circulation so that gets laid down first
right so this is like building a house
what goes down first well blood vessels
get created when when we're created uh
second tissue that gets laid down are
nerves and why that because every organ
needs signaling to be able to tell them
what to do and so your nerves send those
signals right seems pretty fun like if
you were creating a blueprint of a body
those would be the two things that you
do and that's actually what happens
third tissue that gets laid down
surprisingly is fat body fat and they're
called the fat cells are called adipose
uh cells adipose uh is is another word
for fat and they actually form around
blood vessels kind of like bubble wrap
you know if you had a b blood vessel and
you were to wrap bubble wrap around it
that's what fat looks like now what does
fat do and why is it wrapped around
because fat cells atpo cells actually
are fuel tanks um fat actually stores
Fuel and the fuel is absorbed from the
blood gets into the fuel tank and so
that makes total sense why they're
actually located that way right so then
after that the rest of our organs start
to build all around that this just tells
you how important fat is from the get-go
fast forward to nine months baby is born
what do you call a beautiful healthy
baby a fat pudgy chubby baby right big
fat cheeks round tummy uh think about it
like their arms and legs are like those
balloons in a circus where you you know
they make poodles out of it the clown
makes it right like literally they look
like that right so there's something
great important and healthful about fat
in utero very important for survival and
also when we're born right but we don't
tend to think about fat in that
context by by uh by sort of counter
distinction if you actually saw a baby
when they were born and they had chisel
cheekbones like a fashion model and they
had thin arms and long thin legs
like like on a Runway you would be taken
a back you'd go man there's something
wrong with that baby yeah right and
you'd be right okay so a fatless baby a
thin baby lean baby is not well okay so
this is my kind of reset for you to to
rethinking body fat is actually one of
the things that I write about like we
need to have a complete uh
reconceptualization and and a new
understanding of what fat actually does
yeah so what is the what is the fat
doing for the baby during that that
stage of life okay the what the fat is
doing for the baby is actually a
Continuum of what fat does for our
healthy bodies for the rest of our lives
and so this is sort of the the goodness
of fat that's hidden beneath the kind of
the perception of the Badness and the
actual Badness so I'm not denying that
excess body fat is harmful it's very
harmful we're going to get into that in
a second but before we talk about the
harms it's so easy to jump into the
demonization in the health and wellness
space of things I'm a scientist I'm a
doctor let's talk about the the good
stuff first so we can understand you
know when does good become bad and that
way we can know how to restore the good
right that's I'm with you yeah okay so
first of all fat as I mentioned to you
is um an organ uh and it performs
multiple functions as an organ what kind
of organ is it turns out to be an
endocrine organ uh produces hormones
like your thyroid like your adrenal
glands okay like your pancreas and
that's an amazing thing because we
normally think about our fat as an organ
most organs are just a a chunk of
something connected to tubes well Fat's
actually a kind of organ that just
distributed throughout our body and what
does a fat produce as a endocrine organ
it produces hormones 13 different
hormones that are known currently wow
all right and three of them I want to
mention because I think it's important
just to give some examples of what this
hormonal function of fat actually is
remember we're talking about health
we're talking about healthy fat healthy
body from baby to uh you know end of
life the first hormone is leptin made by
fat and many of you may have heard about
leptin leptin is sort of the appetite
controller right more leptin less
appetite less leptin more appetite so
it's kind of like a volume switch for
your hunger all right and that's
important because when your fat actually
is controlling your brain to go search
for food so you can load up on fuel
because the fat cells are fuel tanks so
you can kind of see how this so starts
to fit together now all right now fat so
that's one hormone most people may have
heard of leptin before another hormone
that people that have not heard about or
at least very few people have heard
about is called
adiponectin adiponectin is another Fat
hormone okay uh it's a very important
one and it's completely concerned with
helping your body gain energy from the
food that you eat all right in fact it
works as a partner with insulin which is
a hormone that helps energy so let me
tell you if I were to take a vial of
your blood send it to a regular Hospital
lab to analyze your hor your hormones
your adipine levels and mine would be
1,000 times higher than any other
hormone in your body wow higher than
testosterone higher than thyroid hormone
higher than cortisol anything else now
why is that it's because a dectin
partners with insulin to make sure that
the energy that you have from the food
that we eat is efficiently absorbed into
our bodies that's our metabolism it's
part of our metabolism so good healthy
levels of fat perform this function to
bring in energy along with insulin it's
very very important uh sort of as a
foundation for our energy now there's a
third hormone I want to mention it's
called resistant H resistant is like the
break to a dipine necton that's the gas
pedal
gas pedal goes down let's absorb lots of
energy fast hard resistant is like whoa
let me let's put on the break here a
little bit less all right so you know
most systems in the body are about
balance okay letin uh up less appetite
leptin down more appetite adipine in
down you actually have more efficient
energy absorption uh resistant down the
break actually pull back on energy
absorption makes sense because we want
to fine-tune our our Metabolism from day
to day so that's one very important
thing that normal healthy fat does it's
a set up in the womb the baby start to
do it right away and it continues
throughout our lives this is how we
normally function now a couple of other
things that fat does as well besides
being an endocrine organ it's a cushion
now most people think that fat might be
a uh like insulation kind of like
blubber on a whale n it's more of a
cushion think about fat like peanuts
that you might pack
you're something you're shipping across
the country in yeah all right if we had
no body fat all right and the most
important body fat for the cushion
actually is inside our frame packed
inside our belly if you had no fat and
you tripped on a rug and you fell on a
ground your organs would burst open so
fat actually has sort of a cushion uh
role as well now the other thing that
fat actually has a very important role
on that's fascinating uh is that it's a
space
heater and a space heater so this isn't
just passive you know like again like
the blubber is just passive um the
cushion is kind of passive but this is
an active function just like the hormone
instead of releasing hormones it
releases heat wow now let me explain to
you not all fat generates heat so the
new science of the metabolism tells us
broadly speaking there's two color two
kinds of fat in our body there's white
fat which is
jiggly the white fat that's under the
skin is meaning close to the skin we
call it subcutaneous that's the stuff
you see under your arm under your chin
that's the muffin top all right around
your thighs and your butt that's the
stuff that most people don't like want
to get rid of um uh you know if and I
have no problem with that I that's a
good thing if you feel good by
streamlining your body go for it yeah
like that that's an important thing uh
and too much of it is also bad for you
but the other thing that's really
important is that another kind of jiggly
fat is actually packed inside your body
that's the visceral fat we were talking
about earlier now visceral fat doesn't
care if you have a big siiz body like a
weightlifter in the Olympics or a thin
body like a javelin thrower in the
Olympics it can grow inside and that fat
is sort of like the peanuts for packing
that we talked about except when it
starts to grow excessively it goes from
being a packing peanuts into turning
into a baseball glove that wraps around
your organs and chokes your organs oh
and it can happen whether you're
apparently thin or you obviously if you
actually have excess weight all right
that's white fat both not so good for
you visceral fat deadly so both the
subcutaneous fat and the visceral fat
are white fat correct got it right now
the other kind of fat that's not white
fat the other kind is called Brown fat
you know you're starting to see and hear
about Brown fat you know and you know
you see it online you see some
advertising for it you know a lot of uh
people in in the weightlifting world and
bodybuilding World talk about Brown fat
I'm not coming from that sector I'm I'm
coming at this really as a scientist and
a doctor and let me tell you something
about Brown fed it's absolutely
fascinating because only recently have
we discovered that humans have not just
a little brown fat but a lot of brown
fat and brown fat is different than
white fat because it's not jiggly it's
not lumpy bumpy jiggly it's not under
your arm and it's not definitely not
subcutaneous you can't see it it's not
under the skin Brown fat is paper thin
wafer thin okay so think about it fat as
thin wait a minute yeah that seems to be
a contradiction in terms but yeah Brown
fat are thin sheets and it's not close
to the skin you can't see it it's close
to the Bone all right it's deep and it
actually is plastered around our neck
plastered underneath our breastbone
around like a girdle around our our
chest under our arms a little bit in the
back a little bit in your belly
scattered okay and that fat has space
heater function wow it's like a nuclear
plant that can fire up when it's
stimulated in order to burn energy so it
really actually activates your
metabolism then as it does that it needs
fuel right the space heater needs power
it needs gas um it needs to get fuel
where does it draw the fuel where does
brown fat draw the fuel from Brown fat
draws its fuel to burn from white fat so
Brown fat is good fat that can fight
white fat when it's bad fat fat versus
fat another another totally interesting
thing that you would you can actually
think about fighting fat with fat it's
like a civil war happening in your own
body uh yeah exactly except that you
basically they're all they all started
out being friends and all started off
creating kind of a peaceful Society yeah
well that they should I mean ideally
we'll return to that so how do we then
you've mentioned what brown fat does and
you mentioned where it tends to uh
habitate in the body how do we how do we
Stoke that fire and how do we encourage
its proliferation if it's so good for us
can we even do that yeah well look I
want to tell you a little story about
how Brown fat in humans was discovered
because it's so
fascinating I I think that there's so
much to be learned about the origin
stories and the history of things
because it just gives us a better
appreciation that this isn't just a
trend or a fad this is something real
that was discovered over time okay so in
the um
1700s uh there was a um uh a naturalist
you know kind of somebody who studies
nature named Conrad gestner he lives in
Switzerland and he was really interested
in understanding animals and the anatomy
of animals so he he uh was actually
taking a look at um a rodent that lived
in the Swiss mountains uh that um uh
would hibernate and he would catch one
and dissect it and you know like they do
in the old school days they would draw
the organ
and he found one organ that was between
the shoulder blades and he didn't know
what it was brown colored but didn't
looked like anything else that was out
there well fast forward actually um a
professor at UCLA took a look at that I
mean over time and started to really we
had there were more sophisticated lab
tools and said you know what that brown
thing actually is made out of fat and
the idea of this is that they thought
maybe it was something only hibernating
animals so then they started to find it
in bats and other kind of animals that
actually hibernate okay and they said
well I wonder if it's in humans fast
forward a little bit further they found
it in babies human babies you know where
they found in human babies just like in
this rodent in Switzerland they found it
between the shoulder blades when babies
are born there's a little lump of brown
fat um that actually is there wow now
what did they figure out the brown fat
did in hibernating animals is that when
the an animals
are uh surviving over the winter they
need they need a space heater so Brown
fet fires up and keeps them warm all
right now what now what about human
babies why do we have that is it a relic
of evolution um you know look babies are
born in delivery Suites we can put them
into incubators you know they're in warm
homes uh why do we need them so the idea
that was originally thought is you know
it's just maybe vdu like an appendix all
right which we know now it actually has
a function because it actually harbors
got microbiome as well all right so you
don't want to be or your tonsils right
like people used to say let's whip out
the tonsils whip out the appendix no no
no like that's they're actually form
they're actually important components of
our body all right so Brown fat and
babies um is it vestigal no actually it
serves a function and what they found is
that and they thought well maybe maybe
when the babies grow up the brown fat
just goes away just kind of melts away
turns out that researchers in Boston
were once looking at um a woman who came
in with a tumor in her
chest and they uh did a biopsy looked at
the biopsy and it was made out of fat
okay and in fact it was called a
hibernoma because it resembled the
hibernating animals Mass organ wow okay
Ma meaning tumor and it wasn't malignant
all right but what they thought they was
really interesting is that when they
scanned it using a pet scan which
captures metabolic energy in other words
what you deem to generate Heat this baby
in this tumor this little tumor
hibernoma this brown fat tumor lit up
like a nuclear engine wow okay and it
was only because we had pet scannings at
that time that it could actually even be
figured out so the researcher that did
this uh in Boston Ronald Khan actually
went back and said I wonder if there if
this um
signal uh exists in other pet scans met
met iic scans in other people so he went
back and dug up thousands of other scans
that were done and found yeah actually
there are people that are showing this
brown fat throughout their chest and we
just missed it like it was there but we
weren't looking for it so we just kind
of ignored the signal but not everybody
had it so what he then did is he said
went back and said you know what it was
in hibernating animals that they saw way
back when in the old days right Conrad
gestner so he said let's go back and
match the pet scans with the temperature
of the day in which the scan was taken
so we went back to the meteorological
record and found every time a patient
had a pet scan that shown Brown fat in
the body it was on a cold day in the
wintertime and on warm weather days it
was cooler so this space heating fat
function that lives in adults as well as
babies as well as hibernating animals
truly has a physiological function to
help generate heat it is a space heater
wow