More than ever before, people are eating more calories from food than what they are burning off through exercise and other activities, and this imbalance is causing the rising rates of obesity and diabetes in the US and throughout the world. The different types of body fat are central players in this process. The white fat stores excess calories coming from food, while brown fat also known as brown adipose tissue, or BAT consumes the energy from food to generate heat. This important process in BAT is achieved through the action of a special protein found only in BAT, called uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1).