2017/11/29

Burn your body fat with a transdermal patch

BY:Mason
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A team of researchers recently developed a transdermal patch that featured nanoparticles which can convert the fat cells and burn fats for the human body.

There are two types of fat cells in human body. One is white fat and the other is brown fat. The White fat is mainly responsible for storing the excess energy in the forms of large fat droplets, while the brown fat storages excess energy in small fat droplets, and has a lot of mitochondria. 

In general, mitochondria are cells that generate energy, and the brown fat has a special matter called uncoupling protein which makes the mitochondria produce heat. Therefore, brown fat is mainly responsible for speeding up the ​​metabolism and produces heat as the human body's furnace.

Pic courtesy: https://pixabay.com/p-2354/?no_redirect

Babies tend to have lots of brown fats, but the brown fats decrease as babies grow up. Thus, scientists are always looking for ways to convert white fats into brown fats, which is also considered a potential cure for obesity and diabetes.

Although several fat-converting drugs have been developed, patients can only inject or consume the drugs. According to a researcher, those methods will have side effects like stomach pain or osteoporosis.

In this new research, the drug is loaded on nanoparticles of about 250 nanometers in diameter. The nanoparticles are then loaded onto the ultra-small needles of a patch that will be completely painless when applied to the skin. And, it will release the fat-converting drugs in the skin tissue.

This practice is proved to be effective after experimenting with rats. However, the study is not tested yet on the human body. The researchers are still looking for the most suitable drugs for human use. Maybe in the future, we can reduce our body fat with the method.

Reference:​ https://www.bnext.com.tw/px/article/46785/scientist-develope-fat-burnning-patch​

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