Low levels of brown fat, linked to innate protection against the cold, may be responsible for making some ethnic groups vulnerable to obesity and diabetes, researchers said today.
Dutch researchers said low levels of the fat could be affecting people of south Asian descent.
And therapies based on exposure to cold might help reverse this, they say.
Their findings could explain why these people are at high risk of developing type 2 diabetes, they report in The Lancet.
Brown fat cells, found in babies, respond to cold by turning fat and glucose directly into energy.
The Dutch researchers found that young south Asian men used far less energy when resting than did white men.
Further tests showed that they began shivering at a far higher temperature than men of European origin, even when they carried more fat.
This suggests low levels of brown fat able to respond to cold, the researchers say.
The researchers, from Leiden University Medical Centre, say that finding ways to trigger more brown fat in south Asian men might help protect them from diabetes and heart disease.
Researchers Mariëtte Boon and Patrick Rensen said today: "Our findings suggest that making more brown adipose tissue or increasing its activity could have great therapeutic potential in south Asians, helping them increase the clearance of glucose and fatty acids and converting surplus white fat into heat, potentially lessening the risk of diabetes.
"It has recently been shown that BAT can be recruited in humans following 10 days of cold intervention."
Lancet 12 November 2013 [abstract]
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