We need heat. All warm-blooded animals know this instinctively because when life leaves us, the cold creeps in fast. Heat is produced in different ways inside us, and not only to keep our body temperature at a healthy level but also to keep it stable. After the fashion of small mobile furnaces, we carry adipose tissues that are full of stored fat waiting to be burnt down to release heat -a process termed thermogenesis. Researchers are becoming more and more interested in thermogenesis, especially adaptive thermogenesis which is the capacity an organism has to adjust its energy needs according to the environment, i.e. the amount of food that is available and the surrounding climate. Because where there is talk of food, there is talk of obesity and its direct cousin diabetes, two afflictions from which millions of people currently suffer worldwide. For some time already, scientists have known that molecules known as N-acyl amino acids, are important in biological processes such as thermogenesis, but they knew little more. Until they discovered an enzyme that is secreted by fat cells in adipose tissues, and that knows how to make them: peptidase M20 domain containing 1, or PM20D1.
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