Geschatte leestijd: 3 minutenResearchers have developed a medicinal patch that can burn localized fat. The patch converts white fat into energy-burning brown fat, increasing metabolism locally. Could this finally make it possible to target your love handles?
Fat-burning Patch
Yes, I know, this really sounds like something from a teleshopping ad, but we might have something interesting here. Researchers from the Columbia University Medical Center and the University of North Carolina have successfully reduced love handles in mice. The research results were published in ACS Nano [1]. The patches convert white fat into brown fat, thereby increasing metabolism, allowing for the burning of localized fat and treatment of metabolic diseases such as diabetes and obesity.
White Fat vs. Brown Fat
First, a brief explanation of brown fat, which rightly has been receiving more attention lately.
Humans have two types of body fat. White fat stores energy in large ‘droplets’ formed by triglycerides (a compound of glycerol and three fatty acids). Brown fat is formed by smaller ‘droplets’ and a large number of mitochondria, the energy powerhouses of a cell. These mitochondria contain iron, which gives brown fat its color. The energy powerhouses facilitate high combustion, increasing body temperature. Thus, brown fat primarily acts as a regulator of body temperature in cold conditions. While white fat primarily stores fatty acids, brown fat burns them.
Brown fat is particularly abundant in babies (and animals in hibernation) to protect them from cold. However, in humans, most brown fat disappears by the time we reach adulthood.
Cold therapy has been used for some time to convert white fat into brown fat, a process called “browning.” However, subjecting oneself to continuous cold exposure is not particularly pleasant. Speaking for myself, I have an above-average dislike for cold and had no desire to personally try cryotherapy when I wrote an article on the subject.
Other methods to convert white fat into brown fat involve medication through pills or injections. However, this delivers the medication throughout the entire body, including places where it does more harm than good. Think of side effects such as stomach problems, bone fractures, and even weight gain. Therefore, researchers from the Columbia University Medical Center and the University of North Carolina sought a way to deliver this medication directly into adipose tissue.
Nano Capsules
The recent work of the researchers primarily focuses on an innovative transport method to more effectively administer already-used medication. They used two different types of drugs, rosiglitazone (Avandia) and beta-adrenergic receptor agonist (CL 316243).
These drugs were packaged into nanoparticles with a diameter of approximately 250 nanometers. A nanometer is 0.000000001 meters, indicating how minuscule these particles are (a hair is about 100,000 nanometers thick). The nanoparticles are then packed into a patch of about one square centimeter containing dozens of microscopic needles. When placed on the skin, these needles painlessly puncture the skin and release the medication contained in the nanoparticles into the underlying tissue.
The effectiveness of these substances in converting white fat to brown fat has been demonstrated in mice but not in humans.
“The nanoparticles were designed to effectively hold the drug and then gradually collapse, releasing it into nearby tissue in a sustained way instead of spreading the drug throughout the body quickly,”
Zhen Gu, PhD, associate professor of joint biomedical engineering University of North Carolina & North Carolina State University.
They tested this treatment in obese mice by loading the nanoparticles with one of the two substances. Each mouse received two patches, one with and one without the medication. These were placed on both sides of the bottom of the abdomen. Every three days, for four weeks, new patches were applied. Additionally, they provided a control group of mice with two patches without medication.
Mice treated with one of the substances showed a 20% decrease in body fat on the treated side compared to the untreated side. They also had lower blood sugar levels than untreated mice.
In ordinary mice, both substances were found to increase oxygen consumption by 20%, indicating an increased metabolism.
Genetic analysis showed that the treated side contained more genes associated with brown fat than the untreated side. This suggests that the observed decrease in body fat and increased metabolism is due to an increase in brown fat.
The researchers therefore suggest that this could be a promising alternative to more invasive methods of getting rid of love handles, such as liposuction (which usually only works temporarily). Moreover, it could be a safe method for treating conditions such as obesity and diabetes.
The patches have not yet been tested on humans. The effectiveness of the substances used in mice in converting to brown fat is known, but not in humans. The researchers are currently investigating which substances work best, possibly in combination, to promote the production of brown fat.
References
- Yuqi Zhang, Qiongming Liu, Jicheng Yu, Shuangjiang Yu, Jinqiang Wang, Li Qiang, Zhen Gu. Locally Induced Adipose Tissue Browning by Microneedle Patch for Obesity Treatment. ACS Nano, 2017; DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.7b04348
