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Weight loss is a crucial subject nowadays, as people are trying all kinds of methods to burn some extra fat. Now, a team of researchers from the University of North Carolina and Columbia University Medical Center have found an innovative way to shed off some extra pounds. They have designed a patch which can be used to lose fat from specific body areas. One such area which often bothers people are the well-known love handles.
The patch is applied directly on the fat area
This patch is an effective method of weight loss, as it can be applied on certain areas of the body which are high in fat, and burn the extra pounds from that area specifically. Therefore, they decided to target the area of love handles, where fat is often stored in higher quantities. All their findings have been published in the journal ACS Nano.
To prove the patch can be effective, they tested it on mice. Therefore, they took the device and applied it on the mice’s love handles. The patch injected some medicine in the handles, and contributed to a significant decrease of fat in the area. Now, researchers hope the same method might work on humans.
This method is more effective than similar drugs
Love handles usually store white fat, whose purpose is to produce energy. With the help of the patch, they converted this white fat into dark fat, which produces heat by burning these extra adipose cells. The process is also called browning, and researchers have been trying for years to use it against obesity.
There is medicine which can trigger body fat to perform browning, but they have side effects. However, using such a patch directs the medicine directly into the fat tissue. This reduces the risks, since the medicine is injected right where it’s needed, and is also more effective.
Researchers observed how the mice’s love handles decreased by 20 percent where the patch was applied. The method hasn’t been tested on humans yet, but they think it might be as successful as it was for mice. They are optimistic the method is both effective and safe, and returns better results than similar medicine.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
