White adipose tissue coloring by intermittent fasting

Abstract

Intermittent fasting (IF) has been shown to promote metabolic health in several organisms. Two recent papers show that IF induces white adipose tissue beiging and increases thermogenesis, which improves metabolic health in mice.

Figure 1

Intermittent fasting (IF) induces beiging of the white adipose tissue (WAT) and increases thermogenesis and metabolic health in mice. Two recent studies reported similar beiging effect of WAT by IF. The study by Kim et al. demonstrated the importance of increased VEGF production and macrophage activation in WAT, which was also accompanied by increased vasculature in WAT. The other study by Li et al. provided evidence that IF induced marked changes in gut microbiota, which are essential for the beiging of the WAT via production of the fermentation products lactate and acetate. In both studies, IF was shown to have beneficial effects on body weight and whole body metabolic health in mice (green cells = M1 macrophages, red cells = M2 macrophages).