"The proportional amount of brown fat a person has decreases as they get older.... You can build up your brown fat by spending more time in the cold. A study of Finnish lumberjacks was the first to find that outdoor workers who spend time in the cold have more brown fat than office workers, and [there is] research that shows sleeping in cooler temperatures (66 degrees, in his study) may also increase your levels of brown fat."
From "Why Your Kid Wears Shorts in Winter/While you freeze in cold weather, they have a secret weapon" by Jessica Grose (NYT).
It's absurd to think that sleeping — and only sleeping — in a room heated to 66° is comparable to working all day outdoors in Finland. And what temperature do you think Finnish lumberjacks keep their houses? I'm no Finnish lumberjack, but I do live in Wisconsin, and I go out when the temperature is, say, 8° but I don't artificially heat the house up to 66°. We keep it at 62° in the daytime and let it drop to 50° when we're sleeping. Occasionally, when I feel chilly, I bump it up to 64°, but never 66°, which would generate complaints that it's stifling in here. People who think they're sleeping in a cool room when they've got it at 66° are baffling.
So, yeah, build up your brown fat. That sounds great, but overheating your house to the point where you think it's hardy to endure 66° when you're under the covers shows seriously distorted thinking. Also, there's no discussion of carbon footprints and climate change here. Where did that all-important concern go?
By the way, the article is padded out with material about children's birthday parties (though, strangely, given that headline, nothing at all about shorts).
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So much depends on where you live and what you are used to. When I was in college in near Utica, New York, any room temperatures above 70 degrees were stifling and I wanted the room around 55 at night. Now I've been in Houston for over 45 years, I use the air conditioner even in winter to keep the temperature about 67 degrees for sleeping and 75 during the day. Last winter during the freeze, with no power for heating for three days, my house never got below 50 degrees and I was bundled against the cold. I went for a walk last night with the temperature about 65 degrees and I was wearing a jacket like you would wear at freezing.
This article is written by a journalist.
It is guaranteed to be garbage compared to any number of sources on youtube on this subject.
What you quoted here looks like gibberish. None of this sounds like how adipose tissue works.
>People who think they're sleeping in a cool room when they've got it at 66° are baffling.<
Baffling indeed. I'd have to wring my sheets out every half hour. At my house, furnace off at bedtime and BR window all night, all year (It can get down to 32 at night here.) Apparently all this weight I've been gaining is brown fat.
Also, there's no discussion of carbon footprints and climate change here. Where did that all-important concern go?
Perhaps that concern is not really 'all-important', or the author didn't want to get sidetracked on some bogus peripheral issue like climate change?
Also, there's no discussion of carbon footprints and climate change here. Where did that all-important concern go?
It’s fake so gets wheeled out only when they need moral high ground.
Years ago I kept the daytime house temperature at 58 in the winter, then it was 60, then 62, … I'm 67 y.o. now and keep the house at 66. I just got colder as I got older. Then again, I had more fat back then. Maybe I should put a few pounds back on.
Nah…
This would seemingly work in reverse. Those of us who wear shorts in winter move south and wilt in the heat but slowly acclimate, then go back to the cold and shiver like a chihuahua…
62? Holy cow, do u have radiant heat?
I’d say we work in 40/45 degrees in our tie stall. My feet occasionally get cold. But the amount of hrs may make it harder to warm up- so I appreciate our warm house. And large animals don’t mind the cold
We keep it at 62° in the daytime
i'm thinking, that i understand your dislike of men in shorts more better now
I keep my house warm, 'cause i don't like clothes
Oh, and I had hair back then. It makes a difference.
It's absurd to think that sleeping — and only sleeping — in a room heated to 66° is comparable to working all day outdoors in Finland. And what temperature do you think Finnish lumberjacks keep their houses?
You need to spend a couple winters in a warm location such as coastal California or Florida. The body adjusts to its experienced temperature range "wimps out" when not exposed to freezing temperatures. Few people in warm locations own serious winter clothing. Down jackets come out below 50 or 60 degrees. People uncontrollably shiver between 40 and 50 degrees.
I once had a conversation about this with an incredulous former Detroit resident. "This is NOT cold weather people!"
"And large animals don’t mind the cold"
They told you that?
People are different.
I hope that makes it less "baffling" for you.
Fat of Color
We keep our house at 68 all day and night in the winter.
Brown Fat Matters
So much "what?" in this post.
Brown fat. What? How is this the first time I am hearing about brown fat? Was it newly discovered? If its so important, why has no one mentioned it before. Zillions of articles and books have been written about fat and no one mentioned this brown fat. No, I'm not going to research this, the "what?" comes from the fact that I've never heard of this before.
A gram of brown fat produces 300 times more heat than any other tissue in the body....
What? 300 times more heat than other type of fat? Really? Is it made out of plutonium? Why would the body ever burn any other type of fat if this is true?
I don't artificially heat the house up to 66°. We keep it at 62° in the daytime and let it drop to 50° when we're sleeping.
What? This isn't a historical quote from the 1800's, this is a real person today. Or is it? Did I miss some sort of narrative-within-a-narrative literary device?
Occasionally, when I feel chilly, I bump it up to 64°, but never 66°, which would generate complaints that it's stifling in here. People who think they're sleeping in a cool room when they've got it at 66° are baffling.
What? Not just a personal choice, but the only choice comprehensible to the human mind. What?
I must have missed something here. A lot of things. Maybe I just had a stroke or something.
Brown Fat Matters!
It's all about what you're used to. In winter, we keep our house at 68 during the day and 62 at night in winter. Anything over 70 is stifling. In summer, it's 75 during the day and 68 at night. 68 is chilly, over 75 is too warm.
It's funny that you think because 66 is stifling in some kind of universal goes for everybody sense. Probably 98% of the population would disagree with you.
>>People who think they're sleeping in a cool room when they've got it at 66° are baffling.
Well, it would cost us A FORTUNE to cool our house to 66° in the summer. :)
66° is not "warm" for Floridians. It's a bit chilly.
Of course, there are those who cool their house to 68° in the summer, and heat it to 80° in the winter...
Wife and I always used to joke about going to her Mom's house back in the day. We kept our house at 62 -- the kids always complained! And we'd get to MIL's house: 72. OMG.
The discussion of Brown Fat metabolization in that article sounds profoundly unscientific.
Gerda Sprinchorn said...
I must have missed something here. A lot of things. Maybe I just had a stroke or something.
You didn't miss anything.
Anyone who knows even the basics of this subject will immediately notice that this article is pure gibberish.
I am not seeing anything remotely connected to human physiology.
"What? 300 times more heat than other type of fat? Really? Is it made out of plutonium? Why would the body ever burn any other type of fat if this is true?"
Yeah, very hard to believe. But the science is settled. A journalist says so.
When I lived in CT- in the Fall thru Spring, the thermostat was set at 60 during the day, even if I was home, and I turned it down to 50 when I went to bed. The air temperature in the house, though, never fell to 50, even on the coldest days- it would usually bottom around 54-55 by the time I got up in the morning (the house was built in 1998, so was very well insulated). I never felt cold at all. Now, when I had guests in the house, I was forced to turn the temp up to 70. I also didn't have AC, so by late May early June and through early September, the temperature in house was rarely below 65 at any point in the day, and often not below 70 in July and August.
I live with my elderly mother now- she is freakish- she likes sleeping in a cold room, but won't tolerate any temp below 73 F in the Winter, and won't tolerate any temperature above 73 in the Summer. Gas is a pretty cheap here in Oak Ridge, and so it electricity, but her bills are still pretty large.
I am still, after 11 years here, pretty damned tolerant of the cold- I always have been from an early age. I am not sure I could tolerate the Summer heat any longer without AC, though. Been spoiled.
"And large animals don’t mind the cold"
They told you that?
They did, lol!! As long as they’re watered, fed and have dry beds- they prefer cold to hot. They’re healthier. I suppose everyone has their own experience, but I know my girls. We have blankets on the babies- newborn to about 2months- b/c they need to conserve energy to grow and will expend more energy to stay warm if no blankets.
How can one tell if their fat is brown or not?!
I named a calf Laslo. She’s sassy.
Brown fat research has been around for a while. Have a squizz for yourself.
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C10&q=brown+fat+thermogenesis&btnG=&oq=brown+fat
Need to know thermostat setting and person's body fat percentage to understand if something is baffling...
Check out David Sinclair's talks on hormesis to learn more about the science.
I remember my paternal great grandmother's home vividly. She was in her early 80s around the time I was 6-7 years old. She home was like a blast furnace all year round. From my memories, the temps in that house were around 80 F at least Winter and Summer.
"62? Holy cow, do u have radiant heat?"
We have hot water heat — radiators — in the 100-year-old part of the house and hot-air heat in the 50-year-old part of the house.
“You need to spend a couple winters in a warm location such as coastal California or Florida. The body adjusts to its experienced temperature range "wimps out" when not exposed to freezing temperatures. Few people in warm locations own serious winter clothing. Down jackets come out below 50 or 60 degrees. People uncontrollably shiver between 40 and 50 degrees.“
My partner grew up in Law Vegas, then moved to Phoenix 40 years ago. A self professed “desert rat”. Winters here are heated or cooled to about 70°. Maybe a degree or two up or down, depending on how she is feeling. A couple nights ago, woke in the middle of the night with a very sore throat. Maybe COVID-19? Nope. Had turned the heat on for her the night before, set it to 71°, because she was feeling cold. That had seriously dried me out. But then, when we get up to MT, she refuses to turn on the heat. So, I wear down slippers and long underwear around the house until early May, and then again starting in late September.
But, yes, you get wimpy fast. I have spent years bulk of my life around Colorado, including much of it in the mountains. My brothers, my kid, their spouse, and my parents and grandparents before us, never seem to even notice temperatures outdoors above freezing, and keep/kept their houses cool in the winter. Two years ago we had Christmas up there, and froze at my brother’s house. It was a freezing 65° or so.
"We have hot water heat — radiators — in the 100-year-old part of the house and hot-air heat in the 50-year-old part of the house."
Does that take 2 furnaces?
Also, there's no discussion of carbon footprints and climate change here. Where did that all-important concern go?
Climate change is the excuse the elites use to get you to freeze your tushy off and to make you walk everywhere rather driving your car. The climate models are crap. GIGO - Garbage In, Garbage Out. These models can't match the historical record, they don't reflect the absorbtion properties of CO2. The climate modelers have been working on these for 40-years and are no closer to having accurate models then when they started. It's a con to fund these modelers because "it's a crisis" mentality.
The climate zealots want to ban natural gas for heating; the King County Council has banned new hook ups in unincorporated King County. They want all of use to drive electric vehicles but they don't want power generation to charge those vehicles. Just last month, Snoqualmie Pass was closed for days because of heavy snow and the state fired snow plow drivers who wouldn't get the jab. If the the trucks had been electric, then there would've been 1000's of 80,000-lb bricks sitting on I-90 because their batteries would have been dead. It would have taken weeks to recharge all of those bricks.
50 years ago the accepted wisdom on Brown fat was that it was formed in childhood and that the number of cells remained constant throughout your life. The brown fat cells could shrink in size with a proper diet, but you would never lose them. They would always be there ready to balloon up and make you fat.
When I'm working with my chainsaw to clear our land, I work in shirt sleeves, with maybe a vest, even when it's in the 40s. Active work generates a lot of body heat. After I finish, I drive home in shirt sleeves without putting my coat back on. It's only when I get home and the yard is cold do I put the coat back on.
I always thought (because my professors said so) that brown fat disappears after infancy.
Ah, well, hydronic radiant heat does explain some since the air can be colder and you will still be warm. Higher temps are common when you have blowing "cold" air of a heat pump which is usually on about 20 degrees over the return air temp. A furnace will put out 140 air or so, which feels warmer.
Interesting tidbit I learned from reading/listening to Dan Holohan, a steam heat guru, is that in the 1920s, the engineering books all advised to size the steam systems to heat the house on the coldest day of the year with the windows open. The was a result of the Fresh Air Movement that arose in the wake of the 1918 pandemic. Those 1920s steam systems in NYC building that demand the windows be opened in winter, were designed that way. Also, for the same reasons, there was a move from double pane windows to single pane for air infiltration. Of course, the latter was reversed in the 1970s.
A short 3 min video on the topic
https://youtu.be/6bA5bwyW2BY
is this 'brown fat' actually, physically different from 'non-brown fat'?
Lets cut open a Finn and find out!
18 years ago I was a metabolic research. I've moved out of the field and the way my brain works i've forgotten ALOT of what I knew....so please take what I say as one step better then a 30-second google search comment and far below an actual expert.
I despise this type of journalism and research. It treats something as good without establishing it's good. Kids and finnish lumberjacks better acclimate to the cold?!? Wow. Brown Fat's responsible? Cool! Should I as an adult endeavor to have more brown fat??? I have no idea! Does Brown Fat also do bad things? MAYBE!
A wall of words with little meaning....Let's take this one as an example,
"A gram of brown fat produces 300 times more heat than any other tissue in the body"
WOW. 300x!?!? Really?? How does it do that? By metabolizing it? Or is this stored fat and gram for gram it produces more heat? What does it consume to create that heat? It needs a fuel.
And is it really 300x more than anything else? What about muscle in use, which generates lots of heat. Does it create 300x more heat than that? Cause then we'd have a risk of too much brown fat accumulation leading to overheating.
I could go on just tearing into the language used, but hopefully you all get my point.
...
On acclimation: I love it. I love watching the body do it. I live in SE PA. When late fall hits I'm shivering in 40 degree weather. Yesterday I was outside in 15-20 degree weather with no hat, no gloves, open jacket, just walking calmly and it felt great with no wind. By this time in a month I'll walk outside in 20-25 degree calm weather in a jeans and t-shirt and be fine for 15 minutes.
Swimmers develop that lean yet soft athletic look from their body keeping stores of fat to insulate body temp.
People at altitude develop deeper lung capacity when brought to sea level to accomodate for less oxygen at altitude.
I could go on and on. Our bodies ADAPT. They adapt in musculature, in fat, in heart rate, in bone density (when young), in lung capacity, in the blood....in so much more.
It's what WE DO.
This is one of those areas where YMMV. A lot. Altitude makes a difference. Humidity makes a difference. Age makes a difference. Health makes a difference.
While I don't think you are, at heart, a judgmental person -- you do come across that way occasionally.
I *wish* we could keep it 66° at night but my big he-man husband complains about the cold.
Totally believe in cold sleeping, and cold immersion therapy for that matter.
Brown fat seems to be issued to infants because they don't have the shiver reflex to protect them when they get cold. Presumably, we lose it as we grow.
There is research it can be improved by being exposed to cold.
I have always been comfortable outside in the cold, whatever it may be, maybe two layers less than other people. Once I read about brown fat, I started paying attention. If I go out underdressed as others would think it, I'm uncomfortable for maybe ten minutes and then I'm fine. That would fit the brown fat kicking in.
That's been the way it is for most of my life.
There's another issue which is what the individual thinks of as uncomfortable. We had a guest who was going to go cross country skiing. Had left his long johns in the car and had to go out and fetch them, using my wife's hair dryer to warm them up. Ask him, he's a tough outdoorsman.
My father, having been an Infantryman fighting in Europe--October 44 through VE Da--was rarely warm except the times he was in the hospital. He said one thing he brought home was he never wanted to be cold again. Funny thing is people visiting always brought sweaters.
Another consideration is circulation of the extremities. Other things being equal, some folks' hands get pretty cold at what might be considered normal if slightly low indoor temps. Might not have anything to do with brown fat.
My dad once dated a widow long-distance who kept her house in the high 50s all year 'round, which must have been expensive in an eastern NC summer. I never saw her wear long sleeves. Her doctor husband didn't wake up one morning, and a dozen years later, in her late 60s, she died while talking on the phone.
That article was really sciency.
Original Mike- they certainly did tell me that. And if I wasn’t listening, there’s all kinds of data to back it up. Of course, it could change on a few yrs and usually does. That’s how the experts keep their gravy train jobs.
It’s awful in the Summer- all those 1500+ pound girls hanging in the barn. Eating, drinking milking- pooping! Heat is a stressor. Extreme heat is almost unbearable. Last Summer sucked it was so hot, and was moderately droughty in my area.
Remind me to bring some extra layers if I ever visited Ann's house in the winter.
Clearly the good professor has never visited Iceland. After the initial outlay and accounting for maintenance, heating is essentially free. And the natives like it HOT! HOT! HOT! And then there are the poor Somali immigrants who were cruelly exiled to Minnesota who heat their apartments into the 90s during the winter.
I answered twice on the cow talk. I thought I mustn’t’ve hit publish. Even in comments I can’t write a rough draft…
Three-sided-screened sleeping porches were thought to be healthy before effective TB treatments (but smoking was just fine). My grandmother, who hadn't used one until she married, remembered waking up with snow on her face.
In Italy there is a "Decreto Amministrativo" by the government declaring(!) what is the ideal temperature in the Italian house: 20°C, e.g. is 68°F.
In winter I keep my house around 18/19°C by day, mainly to save some money - my wife complains.
My house temp varies from room to room but for relaxing we keep it 74 or so. I’m outdoors a lot in the winter and actually like the cold. So I guess my brown fat is average.
Journalists should not write on science. Since they won't stop, the alternative is journalists-writing-on-science should not be read.
farmgirl: I believe you!
My home office is usually around 67F and that’s cold enough to force me to wear long underwear, a hat, and fingerless gloves when I’m sitting at my desk. If it were up to just me, I’d keep the condo at 70F.
“ A study of Finnish lumberjacks was the first to find that outdoor workers who spend time in the cold have more brown fat than office workers”
I'm a lumberjack and I'm OK
I sleep all night, I work all day......
62 degrees in the house? Here in Florida, I'd have to run the AC way too low to do that on a regular basis. My AC is set to 77 degrees. When I turn on the heat, it's set to 74. The last two days have been the coldest in the past four years, and record cold for the particular dates, and the high today won't break 70. Normal range is 54 for the low, 76 for the high, which is why we freak out when it gets down to freezing like it did yesterday and today.
Need I point out that it depends upon how much insulation you have?
If you have very little, such that the cold walls are pulling the heat out of your body, 65-70 is a lot colder than if the walls are retaining the heat.
When I lived in NYC, a Danish couple were busted for child abuse. Was winter, temp was above freezing. They rolled the baby stroller up next to a window at a cafe, then entered the cafe & sat next to the window.
Cops came by (maybe due to proto-Karen?) & accused them of child abuse for leaving baby in the cold. The Danes were truly distraught. Turns out, this is a norm in Scandinavian countries.
Feeling cold? Find the Saami AMA channel.
I was one of the sleep in winter with the window open types.
Then I married a southern woman with a thyroid out of whack.
Yep, it's hot in here.
62°F? Heat to 62°F? I'd be wearing not a sweater, but a jacket indoors.
70°F heat, day and night, constant. Used to set it down at night, but don't anymore. Don't like being chilly when I get up for bathroom breaks. Don't like being chilly, period.
I strongly dislike summer when people set their A/C lower than I heat my house to. If I'm in control of the A/C it will be set at 75°F,no lower.
It's much easier, IMHO, to deal with heat then cold.
"is comparable to working all day outdoors in Finland. And what temperature do you think Finnish lumberjacks keep their houses?"
Finns are the world's biggest sauna people, they heat themselves every day or so in 130 DEGF air for an hour then jump into cold water, and do it again. I would not base anything on a Finn's body measurement, unless brown fat comes from heavy drinking.
Brown fat is "baby fat". It helps infants and children be more resistant to the cold, by burning through energy stores to produce heat.
There are a few instances of infants making it through cold weather survival situations relatively well when parents fared much worse.
Honest question: how can the Althousehold drop the night-time temperature to 50 degrees when all the advice I have read on winterizing your house says that you should set your thermostats to 55 at the very lowest in order to insure that you won't have frozen water pipes?
We have a second home and I'd love to set the thermostat as low as possible when we are not there. It's a 12 year old townhouse with units on each side of us so it's not especially vulnerable to frozen pipes, but the HOA mandates settings of no-lower than 55 degrees.
In the winter I set the night-time temp to 58---I'd be happy to go even lower but my husband complains that I keep it "cold enough to hang meat" so 58 is our compromise.
"It's much easier, IMHO, to deal with heat then cold."
I think you mean you like the heat, not that it's "easier to deal with". There's only so many clothes you can take off.
Maybe "brown-fatted" can be the new "big-boned."
Few people in warm locations own serious winter clothing. Down jackets come out below 50 or 60 degrees. People uncontrollably shiver between 40 and 50 degrees.“
I remember being on the South Carolina shore in late October one year and riding the waves while the locals walked the beach in down jackets, gloves and wool hats and looked at me like I was insane.
The places we have lived in the last 30 years, Mississippi, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Texas, it requires serious cooling to get the inside temp down to 66 degrees at night(Most of the year). My wife complains when I set the temp on 68. Lately, we had a cold spell and the HVAC quit working and it got down to 64 inside and she was freezing and couldn't sleep.
"…it got down to 64 inside and she was freezing and couldn't sleep."
Blankets.
Seriously, not being snarky.
I'm cold at less than 69.
My partner woke up this morning at 2:30 am, shivering, and didn’t fall back to sleep until 7 for an hour. The upstairs thermostat was set at 70°. It’s 72° downstairs, and I will probably have to crank the upstairs up that high tonight. It’s 55° Outdoors with a light rain expected shortly. This is why we can’t live in a moderate climate in the winters.
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