ArticleDiabetologia2013
Cold-induced activity of brown adipose tissue in young lean men of South-Asian and European origin.
Article in Diabetologia, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 47 citations in OpenAlex.
- Fluvastatin Reduces Glucose Tolerance in Healthy Young Individuals Independently of Cold Induced BAT Activity.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2021Trial
- Trial
- Trial
- Impact of cold exposure on shift working seafood handlers in Northern Norway: a comparative analysis across work shifts.Journal of occupational medicine and toxicology (London, England) · 2025Article
- Infrared thermography unveiled the variation of brown adipose tissue thermogenesis among East Asian adults.Physiological reports · 2025Article
- Are MTV and TLG Accurate for Quantifying the Intensity of Brown Adipose Tissue Activation?Biomedicines · 2024Article
- Human vulnerability and variability in the cold: Establishing individual risks for cold weather injuries.Temperature (Austin, Tex.) · 2022Review
- Lower brown adipose tissue activity is associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease but not changes in the gut microbiota.Cell reports. Medicine · 2021Article
- Elucidating the Regulatory Role of Melatonin in Brown, White, and Beige Adipocytes.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2020Review
- Differential metabolic effects of oral butyrate treatment in lean versus metabolic syndrome subjects.Clinical and translational gastroenterology · 2018Article
- Brown Adipose Tissue Energy Metabolism in Humans.Frontiers in endocrinology · 2018Review
- Differences between the most used equations in BAT-human studies to estimate parameters of skin temperature in young lean men.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Imaging of Brown Adipose Tissue: State of the Art.Radiology · 2016Review
- The Interplay Between Sex, Ethnicity, and Adipose Tissue Characteristics.Current obesity reports · 2015Review
- Article
- Brown adipose tissue thermogenesis in humans.Diabetologia · 2013Review
- Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
6 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
aims/hypothesisSouth Asians have a disproportionately high risk of developing abdominal obesity, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Brown adipose tissue (BAT) has been identified as a possible target to fight obesity and protect against metabolic disturbance. We explored whether lower BAT activity in South Asians compared with Europids may contribute to the high risk of metabolic disturbance.
methodsWe studied 20 healthy men (ten Europids/ten South Asians, BMI 19-25 kg/m(2), age 18-32 years). Following 2 h of cold exposure (16-18°C) after an overnight fast, (18)F-fluorodeoxyglucose ((18)F-FDG) positron-emission tomography-computed tomography (CT) and (123)I-metaiodobenzylguanidine ((123)I-MIBG) single-photon emission computed tomography-CT were performed to visualise metabolic BAT activity and sympathetic stimulation of BAT. Metabolic BAT activity was defined as maximal standardised uptake value (SUV(max)) of (18)F-FDG, and sympathetic stimulation of BAT as semiquantitative uptake value (SQUV) of (123)I-MIBG. We performed hyperinsulinaemic-euglycaemic clamps to assess insulin sensitivity. Spearman's correlations for SUV(max) of (18)F-FDG and both SQUV of (123)I-MIBG and insulin sensitivity were determined.
resultsThe median (interquartile range) SUV(max) of (18)F-FDG in South Asians (7.5 [2.2-10.6] g/ml) was not different from the median SUV(max) obtained in Europids (4.5 [2.2-8.4] g/ml; p = 0.59). There was no correlation between BAT activity and insulin sensitivity. Correlations between SQUV of (123)I-MIBG and SUV(max) of (18)F-FDG were positive, both in the total population (ρ = 0.80, p < 0.001) and after stratification by ethnicity (Europids, ρ = 0.65, p = 0.04; South Asians, ρ = 0.83, p = 0.01). CONCLUSIONS/
interpretationThis is the first study to prospectively investigate ethnic differences in metabolic BAT activity during cold exposure. We did not find differences in BAT activity between South Asians and Europids. Therefore, it seems unlikely that BAT plays an important role in the development of unfavourable metabolic profiles in South Asians.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.