For millions of weight-challenged Americans, the existence of "brown fat" offered a sort of warm and dreamy hope of a better and thinner future. Unlike the oh so abundant and bad-for-your-health "white" kind of fat, rarer brown fat has been shown to actually generate heat and burn extra energy. Thinner people, it turns out, typically have more brown fat, which hardly seems fair.

No one's yet figured out how to generate more brown fat in people, but the odds just got a little longer and harder. Researchers at Boston University recently reported that excessive consumption of high-calorie foods not only boosts numbers of white-fat cells, but also leads to dysfunction in brown-fat cells.

In simpler terms, overnutrition disrupts cell signaling and causes brown-fat cells to lose some of their blood supply and eventually their mitochondria — the tiny internal power plants that enable them to burn prodigious amounts of energy.

In effect, both literally and metaphorically, the researchers said brown-fat cells "whiten."

BODY OF KNOWLEDGE

When you laugh, you expel short bursts of air up to 70 mph.

GET ME THAT. STAT!

While births to younger teens aged 15 to 17 years have declined in recent years, they still represent more than a quarter of teen births — almost 1,700 births a week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

DOC TALK

NPO — An abbreviated medical instruction, usually in writing, that means "nothing by mouth." It derives from the Latin "nil per os," which translates as "nothing through the mouth."

PHOBIA OF THE WEEK

Metathesiophobia — fear of change

NEVER SAY DIET

The Major League Eating speed-eating record for cherrystone clams is 312 in six minutes, held by Sonya Thomas, who apparently misunderstood the direction "to clam up."

BEST MEDICINE

A patient complained to his doctor: "Doc, you have to help me. I'm addicted to Twitter."

The doctor replied, "I'm sorry. I don't follow you."

OBSERVATION

"Neurotics complain of their illness, but they make the most of it, and when it comes to taking it away from them, they will defend it like a lioness her young." — Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

CURTAIN CALLS

Lawrence of Rome, one of Pope Sixtus II's deacons, was roasted alive on a giant grill during the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Valerian in 258 A.D. It's said Lawrence joked, "Turn me over. I'm done on this side." Lawrence was later elevated to sainthood and is now considered the patron saint of cooks and firefighters.

To find out more about Scott LaFee and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.