Fat Lab Lock-In: Can Spicy Pills Help You Lose Weight? Addenbrooke's Hospital Study

IT'S early evening, and I'm facing a dilemma of some delicacy - whether or not to break wind. Let me explain... I'm poised to be voluntarily trapped in a room for the night as part of research to find new treatments for obesity at the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, UK. The aim of the experiment is to see if brown fat, a special type of fat tissue that turns energy obtained from food into heat, can be coaxed into burning more unwanted white fat than usual. They intend to do this using a simple food supplement - a daily capsule of spicy ingredients such as chilli pepper or cinnamon - aimed at mimicking the effects of being in the cold.