Lerner posted a link to this study in comments on another post: Cold-Activated Brown Adipose Tissue in Healthy Men. A small part of the study where they looked at BAT activity for the three subjects with the most BAT under neutral thermal conditions caught my eye, and I think this is central to some of the confusion Kaptain Konfusion has introduced into this whole discussion. They tested all subjects lying on their backs in a chamber, first for one hour in thermoneutral temp, next for 2 hours at 17C. For three subjects they retested in thermoneutral temps for the entire time.
There was no detectable brown-adipose-tissue activity in the three subjects who were retested under thermoneutral conditions. Brown-adipose-tissue activity was recorded in Subject 2 at 856.5 kBq during exposure to cold and 0 kBq in thermoneutral conditions, in Subject 3 at 587.2 kBq during cold exposure and 0 kBq in thermoneutral conditions, and in Subject 4 at 250.0 kBq during cold exposure and 0 kBq thermoneutral conditions.Read more »
