Cold treatment and sympathetic nervous stimulation increases T Regulatory cells (Tregs) in fat tissue: brown fat most of all, visceral least
From the article:
The number of obese people as well as those suffering from type 2 diabetes is increasing worldwide. Both disorders are associated with metabolic changes including amplified inflammatory responses in adipose tissue. “Previous studies have indicated that immunosuppressive regulatory T-cells – or Tregs for short – play an important role in these processes,”[…]
[They] determined that the number of Tregs in adipose tissue increases in response to different environmental stimuli. These stimuli included a short-term cold treatment, stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system (beta-3-adrenoreceptors) or short-term high-caloric exposure. “All these stimuli supported those immunosuppressive cells directly in the adipose tissue,”
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T regulatory cell response to cold and adrenaline reduced in visceral fat:
The magnitude of the increase in Tregs differed depending on the type of adipose tissue: it was particularly pronounced in brown fat, somewhat weaker in subcutaneous fat and weakest in visceral fat.