A new approach to reducing bulging tummy fats has shown promise in laboratory trials. It combines a new way to deliver drugs, via a micro-needle patch, with drugs that are known to turn energy-storing white fat into energy-burning brown fat. This innovative approach developed by scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) reduced weight gain in mice on a high fat diet and their fat mass by more than 30 per cent over four weeks.
The new type of skin patch contains hundreds of micro-needles, each thinner than a human hair, which are loaded with the drug Beta-3 adrenergic receptor agonist or another drug called thyroid hormone T3 triiodothyronine.
When the patch is pressed into the skin for about two minutes, these micro-needles become embedded in the skin and detach from the patch, which can then be removed. As the needles degrade, the drug molecules then slowly diffuse to the energy-storing white fat underneath the skin layer, turning them into energy-burning brown fats.
Transdermal Delivery of Anti-Obesity Compounds to Subcutaneous Adipose Tissue with Polymeric Microneedle Patches (DOI: 10.1002/smtd.201700269) (DX)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @01:34PM (6 children)
The receptor influenced by the first drug plays an unknown (according to Wikipedia) role in urination and is suspected to also have a function in the central nervous system. I didn't even bother to look up the second.
Is *that* the kind of stuff you want to bring into wide circulation among users of the psychologically unstable "more is better"-crowd? (I'm looking at you, 14-year-old girls!l who think they are "fat") What could possibly go wrong *sigh*
Anyone remember Thalidomide?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday December 29 2017, @01:54PM (2 children)
Have you met people? They really are that stupid. "Oh it will make me lose 30% of my weight? Awesome" ... and then after a bit of time they think that if one pill makes me lose 30% perhaps 2 pills will make me lose 60% ... I'm so going to be ready for Beach 2018 if I just pop 3-4 of them at the same time. People will literally cover their arms (or whatever body part) with these patches and just rip them all off to try and target the "fat reduction". Previous diet-drugs have not been an exception even when the list of side-effects is so long it's scarey and the most common side effect was that you would get massive oily liquid explosive diarrhea. Not a problem cause all that matters is that you would become thin and pretty in the end and the faster you get there the better the drug is.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 29 2017, @02:44PM (1 child)
I will observe that these patches don't promise to reduce fat. Instead, they promise to change white fat cells into brown fat cells. So, uhhh - no one is going to reduce the number of fat cells, only the configuration of those cells.
Also, I've never heard that brown fat cells are harmful, in any way. They regulate the conversion of stored energy into readily available energy. White cells store energy, brown cells make that energy available. I don't think you can have to many brown fat cells. If you know something otherwise, please share it.
But, my observations have little if anything to do with the potential side effects. Yeah, if six are good, someone is going to do sixty. And, some other fool will cover himself with 600 patches. "Side effects? What side effects? I've always been covered in hair, like a gorilla!"
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday December 29 2017, @06:13PM
FWIW, and I don't know why, I believe that brown fat cells have a higher probability of turning cancerous than white fat cells. I'm sure this is based on something I read at some point, but it may have been a "that seems likely" kind of thought. But it is certain that we are born with a higher proportion of brown fat cells, and as we grow up the proportion shifts to a higher proportion of white fat cells. It's also been reported that one "easy" way to convert white fat cells to brown fat cells is to live for a month or so at a temperature of below 40 degrees Fahrenheit. So you don't need micro-needles or exogenous drugs.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @03:18PM
To be fair, a lot of the people with that attitude are already resorting to nicotine, amphetamines, or plain old eating disorders to get or stay thin.
I'm in favor of the research, if not the use of the resulting drug for human use. We don't understand as much about the human metabolism as we would like. Maybe more information about fats in the human body can help with understanding and fighting diabetes or heart disease.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 29 2017, @08:38PM
Who the hell modded this down? I +1'd it but it's still at 0 even despite that :/ This is an important point; we really, REALLY ought not to mess with fundamental parts of our biology we don't know entirely what they do like this...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday December 29 2017, @09:00PM
As I pointed out below, taking enough T3 is going to make you lose weight however method it gets into your body.
Taking excess T3 is artificially inducing hyperthyroidism, which is associated with weight loss.
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory
(Score: 4, Informative) by meustrus on Friday December 29 2017, @04:34PM (4 children)
Yeah, hardly anybody in the Western world eats a high fat diet anymore. The culprit these days is high-sugar, high-starch diets. Testing this treatment against a high fat diet doesn't necessarily show it will be effective in people eating the more common high-sugar, high-starch diet.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday December 29 2017, @06:29PM (3 children)
I think the point is targeting the fat stored under the skin. And a high fat diet was chosen to quickly bloat up the mice so that the technology could be tested. It's not like eating brown sugar-Os every day will create a "sugar layer" under your skin that can simply be rinsed away with water.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday December 29 2017, @06:34PM (2 children)
No, eating brown sugar-Os every day will create the same fat layer under the skin, along with the rest of the obesity-related disorders like diabetes that are all commonly associated with each other these days. They'd get the mice even fatter with a High Fructose Corn Syrup drip, and then not only would they know more about interactions with the rest of the associated disorders, but it'd probably be cheaper too.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday December 29 2017, @06:41PM (1 child)
So you acknowledge that I'm correct, you're nitpicking, and the microneedle patch is going to work or fail the same way no matter which diet the mice/humans are on?
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday December 29 2017, @09:05PM
I acknowledge that you can gt the mice fat on a high fat diet, but it doesn't really replicate the complex of obesity-related disorders that this is likely to be used to treat. Mainly though I object to the continued use of "high fat diet" as the preferred means of fattening test subjects, because it implies that high fat diets are the culprit for most obesity in humans when that just plainly isn't true.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by NewNic on Friday December 29 2017, @06:13PM
Surely taking excess quantities of T3 will make anyone lose weight, independent of how it is administered. Anyone ever heard of hyperthyroidism?
lib·er·tar·i·an·ism ˌlibərˈterēənizəm/ noun: Magical thinking that useful idiots mistake for serious political theory