Research

Hormonal

Chronic treatment with the beta-3 adrenergic receptor agonist mirabegron increases brown adipose tissue (BAT) metabolic activity and volume in healthy women without altering body weight.

This study suggests that the bladder medication Mirabegron, when taken chronically at a dose higher than standard (100mg vs 50mg), can activate brown fat and increase its volume in healthy women without causing weight gain. However, because the study was small, open-label, and lacked a placebo, these results should be viewed as preliminary evidence that beta-3 stimulation is a viable pathway for metabolic health, pending larger controlled trials.

ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
Chronic mirabegron treatment increased BAT metabolic activity... We observed similar proportional increases in BAT volume... Upon completion of the trial (day 28), there were no changes in weight, fat mass, fat-free mass, or reported food intake.
Alana O’Mara et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 2020

Why this rating

Small sample size (n=14), open-label design, and lack of a placebo control limit causal certainty regarding the magnitude of effect versus fasting/time effects.

Source

Chronic mirabegron treatment increases human brown fat, HDL cholesterol, and insulin sensitivity

Alana O’Mara et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 2020

DOI 10.1172/jci131126

rct · n=14Cited 363×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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