Patients with chronic illness benefit from cold weather

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indiana has experienced its first frost of the season. This has some Hoosiers dreading the colder days that lie ahead. 

However, winter weather has its perks especially if you’re a type 2 diabetic.

According to researchers in the Netherlands, cold air exposure could help treat the disease because of the impact it has on a person’s brown fat. 

Brown fat is a type of fat the body uses to keep itself warm. It also plays a major role in lowering blood glucose levels and insulin regulation. People tend to accumulate brown fat in the winter.

Brown fat’s ability to regulate glucose and insulin combined with potentially high amounts of calories burned from brown fat through shivering when exposed to the cold could be two factors used to develop treatment methods for type 2 diabetes. 

“Brown fat is a metabolic heating system inside our bodies, burning calories,” study author, Dr. Adam Sellers, said in an interview. “This generates heat and prevents calories from being deposited as normal white fat. When we are cold, we can activate our brown fat because it burns energy and releases energy to protect us.”

The study was presented at the European Association for the study of Diabetes Annual Meeting.