Exposure to Moderately Cold Environment Could Help with Weight Loss

Warm offices and homes might be responsible for expanding waistlines, researchers from The Netherlands have said.

According to their study, turning down that thermostat and exposing the body to mildly cold air might be a good way of losing some extra pounds.

"Since most of us are exposed to indoor conditions 90 percent of the time, it is worth exploring health aspects of ambient temperatures," said first author of the article Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt of Maastricht University Medical Center in The Netherlands.

 "What would it mean if we let our bodies work again to control body temperature? We hypothesize that the thermal environment affects human health and more specifically that frequent mild cold exposure can significantly affect our energy expenditure over sustained time periods," Lichtenbelt said.

Marken Lichtenbelt and his colleagues have been studying effects of cold on body for about 10 years now.

Getting the Brown Fat Working                                                                                

Other researchers had earlier found that 'brown fat' is associated with non-shivering thermoregulation. In a moderately cold environment, the body regulates internal temperatures by waking up these brown fat cells that generate heat, CNN reported.

Lichtenbelt and colleagues have found that overweight and elderly people have poor nonshivering thermoregulation system when compared with healthy people.

According to Lichtenbelt, letting the body adapt to moderately cold temperatures could be a good way to encourage these brown fat cells to work and expend energy.

In their study, researchers found that participants, who were exposed to a cold environment for six hours a day for ten days, adjusted to the variation in temperature and shivered less at 15 degree Celsius (59 degrees F). These people had higher levels of brown fat in the body than others.

Lichtenbelt and team say that training the body to adapt to a mildly cool environment along with exercise and a healthy diet could help reduce weight.

"Indoor temperature in most buildings is regulated to minimize the percentage of people dissatisfied," the researchers write, according to a news release. "This results in relatively high indoor temperatures in wintertime. This is evident in offices, in dwellings and is most pronounced in care centers and hospitals. By lack of exposure to a varied ambient temperature, whole populations may be prone to develop diseases like obesity. In addition, people become vulnerable to sudden changes in ambient temperature."