Now, weight loss patches are in the works and it could not be long before weight loss patches are commercially available. These patches are being developed by a team at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University. Both these drugs have been proved to reduce body fat by converting energy-storing white fat into energy-burning brown fat. However, these drugs have some serious side effects if they are taken via injections or orally.
These patches were tested on mice and showed promising results. When these patches are pressed onto an overweight mouse for a couple of minutes, the microneedles, which are thinner in diameter than a human hair, break off from the patch and embed themselves in the skin. This white fat is converted into brown fat and is burned off the body. In the lab tests, the mice were kept on a high-fat diet beforehand and the use of these patches decreased their fat mass by over 30% in just four weeks.
Furthermore, these mice had significantly lower blood cholesterol and fatty acid levels when compared to a control group of mice.The amount of drugs we used in the patch is much less than those used in oral medication or an injected dose.
