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Completed Not applicable Interventional Accepts healthy volunteers

The Role of Brown Adipose Tissue in Triglyceride Clearance in People

ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT02786251

Public ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02786251. Field values are reproduced from the official study page; the official ClinicalTrials.gov record remains the source of truth for eligibility, enrollment, and contact information.

ClinicalTrials.gov public records Last synced Sep 7, 2026, 1:55 AM EDT

Data is sourced from official ClinicalTrials.gov public API records. Always review the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for the latest information.

Brief summary

Reproduced verbatim from the official ClinicalTrials.gov record. Not medical advice.

The recent discovery of functional brown adipose tissue (BAT) in humans has led to a paradigm shift in adipose tissue biology; it is now believed that adipocytes may play a significant role in regulating substrate metabolism. Given that the resurgence in the interest in human BAT is still in its infancy, a number of fundamental questions pertaining to the role of BAT in human physiology remain unanswered. One area of particular importance, but poorly understood, is the potential effect of BAT on triglyceride (TG) metabolism. Data from a series of studies have found that BAT is inversely associated with adiposity, high blood lipids, and fatty liver in people. However, the role of BAT in the regulation of TG metabolism in people is not known. The overall goal of this study is to determine the physiological importance of the human BAT in TG metabolism. To this end, we are planning to study overweight/obese women with high amounts of BAT (BAT+, n=14) and with no/minimal BAT (BAT-, n=14) both under thermoneutrality and mild cold exposure (\~2 weeks apart). The investigators hypothesize that BAT+ participants will demonstrate greater plasma very low-density lipoprotein triglycerides (VLDL-TG) clearance rate compared to BAT- participants, and higher expression of genes involved in lipid metabolism only in BAT (but not muscle and white adipose tissue). Infusion of stable isotope tracers and metabolic modeling techniques will be used to assess VLDL-TG kinetics. Positron emission tomography computed tomography will be used for the identification and quantification of BAT. Supraclavicular BAT, abdominal white adipose tissue, and skeletal muscle tissue biopsies during cold exposure and thermoneutral conditions in conjunction with molecular biology techniques will used to measure expression of genes involved in lipid metabolism.

Study identification

NCT ID
NCT02786251
Recruitment status
Completed
Study type
Interventional
Phase
Not applicable
Enrollment
29 participants

Conditions and interventions

Eligibility (public fields only)

Age range
21 Years to 65 Years
Sex
Female
Healthy volunteers
Accepts healthy volunteers

This page does not interpret eligibility. Detailed inclusion and exclusion criteria are on the official ClinicalTrials.gov record.

Study timeline

Start date
Apr 30, 2016
Primary completion
May 31, 2019
Completion
May 31, 2019
Last update posted
Mar 14, 2022

2016 – 2019

United States locations

U.S. sites
1
U.S. states
1
U.S. cities
1
Facility City State ZIP Site status
Washington University School of Medicine St Louis Missouri 63110

Site contact phone numbers, emails, and investigator names are intentionally not displayed here. Open the official ClinicalTrials.gov record for site contact information.

About this trial record page

What this page shows
Public field values for ClinicalTrials.gov record NCT02786251, including study identification, conditions, interventions, eligibility (age, sex, healthy volunteer), timeline, and U.S. site list.
What this page does not do
No medical advice, eligibility judgments, treatment recommendations, study quality scoring, or AI-generated medical summaries. No site contact phone numbers, emails, or investigator names.
Where the data comes from
Sourced from the official ClinicalTrials.gov public API. The official record is the source of truth.
Last refresh
Last update posted Mar 14, 2022 · Synced Sep 7, 2026

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