One of my key themes for improving your metabolism is improving the fitness of your fat. This means making healthier white adipose tissue cells and reducing the inflammation coming from white adipose tissue. It also means restoring the proper balance of brown fat cells which are very handy for disposing of calories as heat. A new animal study demonstrates that when the primary food craving signal in your brain, NPY, is blunted then you start making more brown adipose tissue cells – a rather novel discovery.

NPY becomes excessive in leptin resistance. Thus, if you follow the Five Rules of the Leptin Diet and notice that your food cravings go away, then you are for sure making less NPY. If you can keep yourself in that mode for an extended period of time, then this new study suggests that you will make more brown adipose tissue cells (BAT) as time goes on and you’re helping to restore the fitness of your fat. 

BAT is crowded out by chubby white adipose tissue cells in overweight people. Thus, as you lose weight and stay on track you will make a combination of smaller and more fit white adipose tissue cells along with an increased amount of BAT. More BAT is nice, because it really does just throw calories away.  BAT is stimulated by sympathetic nerves, so every time you do some strenuous or vigorous activate or exercise your BAT will activate. This means that not only will your muscles burn more calories to perform the exercise, but your BAT will throw some away as well. This added calorie burning effect is sure to help your metabolism.

Another simple reason for elevated NPY is a lack of calcium, which is one reason why taking extra calcium is often helpful to assist in weight management. 

In women, NPY is a key signal that is also involved with elevations in FSH that relate to hot flashes. This is one reason why high calcium will sometimes stop hot flashes. Regardless, stopping hot flashes may be its own subject with the side benefit of lowering NPY and helping metabolism.

Unfortunately, you can have more advanced NPY-related craving problems. As I explained in my article,  How Digestive Problems Prevent Weight Loss – The Leptin Diet Weight Loss Challenge #2, the stomach craving hormone known as ghrelin is activated due to digestive distress.  In turn, ghrelin directly ramps up NPY production in your brain. This means you may have to address your digestive tract issues more thoroughly to get your cravings under control. Pine Nut Oil is my favorite supplement that helps both cravings and nourishment of your GI tract.

The main point of this article is that if you can consistently get in a mode where you do not have inappropriate food cravings, then it will help you make more metabolically useful BAT and have healthier adipose tissue. This is vital for your metabolism and future cardiovascular health.

Posted by Byron J Richards at 04:41 PM.

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