Sleep in cool room to `boost` your metabolism

Washington: A new study has revealed that sleeping in a cool environment can help people boost their metabolism.

Researchers have found that cool temperatures could stimulate the growth of brown fat, a special kind of fat that burns energy, in people's body, which might boost their metabolic health and might protect against obesity and diabetes, the Huffington Post reported.

Dr. Paul Lee, an endocrinologist at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, said that the big unknown until this study was whether or not it was possible to actually manipulate brown fat to grow and shrink in a human being.

He further explained that the cold month increased brown fat by around 30-40 percent and during the second thermo-neutral month at 24 degrees Celsius, the brown fat dropped back, returning to baseline, however, when they put the temperature up to 27 degrees Celsius during the fourth month, the volume of brown fat fell to below that of baseline.

The study is published online in the journal Diabetes.