Fat cells

It sure sounds like an online pop-up ad, but Harvard scientists have created and tested a new treatment that melts away body fat. The new technique involves injecting an icy saline solution directly into fat deposits to shrink them by half.

Researchers may have found a way to reduce the amount of fat absorbed by the body. Mixing food with specially engineered tiny silica particles has been seen to reduce the body's energy absorption of high-fat foods, and human trials are now underway.

Many of the most pressing health problems of our time start with obesity. Now, researchers at Yale have identified an enzyme in mice that could be a potential target for future treatments, acting like a “doorman” that keeps carbs out of fat cells.

Although many people routinely pinch their belly in order to see how fat they're getting, that's really only a measure of their subcutaneous "under the skin" fat. The Bello device goes deeper, using light to measure visceral fat.

Caffeine has long been considered an effective appetite-suppressant, and it's been shown to effectively speed up the body’s fat metabolism processes. Now, research has homed in on another mechanism that may explain caffeine’s anti-obesity properties.

A novel study has for the first time detected significant accumulations of fatty tissue in airway walls of obese and overweight people suggesting these accumulations may explain why overweight individuals are at higher risk of respiratory disease.

A team at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center has published a paper detailing a mechanism that appears to regulate fat formation in mammals.

A new study has discovered a mechanism explaining how obesity and high-fat diets can disrupt the appetite-suppressing signals from the brain and lead to overeating. The fascinating research revealed a hormone in the gut, triggered by high-fat meals, actually induces the body to keep eating.

A team of scientists from Israel report compelling new insights into how the metastatic spread of melanoma is assisted by nearby fat cells. The research does not suggest obesity enhances the metastatic potential of skin cancers but it does point to new drugs that can stop the spread of melanoma.

A new drug delivery system has been developed that hides chemotherapy molecules inside fat cells that are quickly eaten up by hungry tumors. The method has been shown to be effective at targeting bone, colon and pancreatic cancers in animals, and human trials are proposed for the near future.

Does weight loss inherently result in the slowing down of a person’s metabolism? New research suggests we have evolved an anti-starvation mechanism that slows our metabolism and ironically is triggered by modern weight loss methods.

What if you could stay healthier without changing your diet? In mouse tests researchers have now found a way to alter the fat metabolism in the liver, reducing the chances of diabetes without changing a high-fat diet.