{
  "id": 19659459,
  "title": "Why we may feel the cold more as we age",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/11/12/why-we-may-feel-the-cold-more-as-we-age",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-11-12T14:20:30.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Medical Xpress",
    "slug": "medical-xpress",
    "url": "https://medicalxpress.com/news/2026-11-cold-age.html"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Researchers from City of Hope have unraveled the biological reason behind why older individuals tend to feel the cold more intensely. Focusing on thermogenic fat, a special type of body fat that generates heat to keep us warm, the study suggests that this fat becomes less active with age. Qiong Annabel Wang, an associate professor at City of Hope's Arthur Riggs Diabetes & Metabolism Research Institute and the lead author, explained that understanding how the body regulates this process could offer insights into metabolic disorders like obesity and type 2 diabetes. Her research reveals that signals from nerves and immune cells control the level of heat produced by thermogenic fat cells, which can shift between high and low activity states. Experiments with mice indicated that this regulatory system becomes less flexible with age, causing thermogenic fat to respond more sluggishly to colder temperatures. This study, published in Nature, found that older mice still produced heat but needed more time to do so, making it harder for them to maintain their body temperature. Researchers also observed a similar pattern in human thermogenic fat samples, though most experiments were conducted on mice. By blocking a specific part of the biological pathway responsible for this slowdown, they were able to partially restore heat production in older mice. While the drug used, mifepristone, affects various parts of the body and thus isn't a treatment for age-related cold sensitivity, it suggests that the decline in thermogenic fat activity could potentially be reversed. This finding could have broader implications for age-related metabolic problems, including obesity and type 2 diabetes.",
  "summary": "Researchers from City of Hope have uncovered the biological reason why we become more sensitive to cold as we get older. Unlike white fat, which primarily stores energy, thermogenic fat is a special type of body fat that burns calories to produce heat and helps us stay warm. Thermogenic fat tends to become less active with age, which may explain why older people are more sensitive to cold.",
  "key_points": [
    "Older individuals feel cold more intensely due to less active thermogenic fat.",
    "Thermogenic fat activity regulated by nerve and immune cell signals.",
    "Blocking specific pathway partially restores heat production in older mice."
  ],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}