Local heating of skin tissue can induce UCP1 and increase mitochondria, similar to cold exposure's ability to convert white fat to beige fat.

“What this study involved was heating of a local patch of skin to 41 degrees Celsius, which is a 105.8 degrees Fahrenheit, but not damaging the skin.”

“So here we have a situation where local heating of skin converted a metabolically sluggish or inactive cell type, the white fat cell, into the metabolically charging, so to speak, beige fat cell, which in turn led to systemic, meaning body-wide increases in metabolism, through two mechanism. One mechanism is this increase in UCP1, which for those of you that want to know, UCP1 causes shifts in the way that potential energy is pushed from the protons through the mitochondria, basically more mitochondrial function, which means more ATP, which means cells are more active, AKA, increased metabolism, and increases in things like heat shock factor one and A2B1, which are involved in lipid and glucose metabolism and regulation.”

“However, I do predict a time not too far from now where people will start to explore the use of local skin heating as a means to increase the conversion of white to beige fat, and in turn for beige fat stores to increase metabolism overall, and maybe even improve glucose metabolism and thermogenesis.”

“basically what this paper shows is that by locally heating up skin and fat, you can change the identity of certain fat cells at that location and elsewhere.”