"The energy that fuels your body can come from fats, proteins or carbohydrates. You won't know which because the end result is ATP, or cellular energy."

"Your body will use the energy it needs and store the leftover fats, proteins or carbohydrates as fat. When you do the sums, it's ultimately a matter of calories in and calories out."

"It's important to stress that the focus of our study was limited to an analysis of the impact of fat oxidation on overall fatness. We didn't investigate all impacts of fat oxidation - and so we don't rule out benefits of burning off fats in specific tissues."

"For example, manipulating fat metabolism may - or may not - lead to better insulin action in muscles or in the liver. Should insulin action be improved, that would obviously benefit obese people with Type 2 diabetes. But we can't comment either way until we do the experiments."

And the take-home message? Follow a healthy, balanced diet and get plenty of exercise.

Source: Research Australia