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[kaenneth]

Arn't there those machines that give small electric shocks to activate muscles?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrical_muscle_stimulation

[JoshuaFH]

When I hear this, I'm thinking of something like an "Exterior Organ Machine" which uses your cells to create something of a large muscle, hook it up to to an electroshock machine, and then hook yourself up to it via IV-thingamajig.

Blood circulates between yourself and it, the Electroshock is forcing it to be constantly exerting itself, it's from your own flesh so your body doesn't reject it and it's giving off all the little chemicals and signals to your body for extra nourishment (is that how it works? who knows) and you just relax and let the muscle strain itself and leech off all the energy stored in your body fat.

It's like a bio-mechanical man-made parasite, in a way.

[GlyphGryph]

Exactly! We build a parasite. That's all I'm asking for.

[RedKing]

Why does this sound familiar.....

[JoshuaFH]

I thought the first thing to be referenced were the 1920's stomach worm pills.

[penguinofhonor]

I think I saw an episode of 1000 Ways to Die about this.

[Loud Whispers]

I think I saw an episode of 1000 Ways to Die about this.

1001

[ChairmanPoo]

There was talk about gene therapy that would help to burn fat a couple of years ago. Very experimental, they were mostly fiddling around in animal models. TBH I find it a rather aggresive treatment, considering there are easier options...

[Solifuge]

Exercising, at the least to the extent that most people can manage it, is an incredibly inefficient way to burn fat. You need to dedicate large blocks of times regularly to make a significant impact (which is why changing your eating habits is a much more valuable way to control weight). And being overweight often makes exercise difficult in and of itself, and far less enjoyable. Some, like myself, exercise as much as possible (probably 3-4 hours a week of moderate exercise, and 4-8 hours of light exercise like extended walks), and still find themselves overweight simply because they have difficulty controlling their diet (and I'll be honest, the medication has been making that worse)

There are a lot of complex chemical reactions taking place when you burn adipose tissue in your body. Making a machine/process to do it is plausible, but I can't see it being done without lots of incisions to actually reach fat tissues.

I don't see why the machine would have to do it directly to the given cells, since our body manages to use fat energy from pretty much everywhere for pretty much everything, no?

The thing is, exercise is the only way your body is triggered to access its fat stores, and produce energy from it; stored adipose is only broken down in muscle tissues when they are overworked, or there's no stored glycogen (short-term energy storage) available.

Hypothetically, you could isolate the hormone that forced fat-storing cells to dump fat molecules into the bloodstream, administer that to people, and then filter it from the blood dialysis-style, but unnaturally high amounts of fat in the bloodstream wrecks havoc on your blood vessels, causing them to harden... and I'm not sure if there is such a hormone, nor if it strictly affects the body's fat stores. Again, exercise is the only way I know of that the body can trigger that mechanism in a safe way.

Problem is, would the harvesting cost more than the energy produced? That is the obstacle we need to overcome, and depending on how the machine works... maybe!

Though really it probably wouldn't even be able to power itself unless the designers were really smart about it...

We've been trying to design engines that could be powered by calories for years. Though I can't find the source now, I did read about a working model a number of years ago, though it required a lot of chemical treatments to break food items (I think it was strictly plants) down into combustible chemicals, and was still pretty inefficient. With the exception of solar cells, we don't yet have the equipment or tech needed to generate electricity on a chemical level... we're still doing it physically through properties of electromagnetism, generally with some kind of fuel heating water to spin a turbine... or using something like wind or water flow to spin the turbine.

[ChairmanPoo]

Glucose and glycogen have to come from somewhere, though. Exercise is not the only thing to induce beta-oxidation of fatty acids, it happens in "normal" circumstances as well. It is, however, an effective way to do it. In the end it all comes down to a matter of balance between the intake and burning of calories.

[Solifuge]

Everything you didn't want to know about Lipolysis.

There are only a handful of hormones that induce the release of stored fat into the blood. This includes adrenaline, growth hormone, and testosterone... which as you might guess can have undesirable side effects if administered. The other hormones are no different, in that they effect more than just enabling fat to be accessed by the body... some increase blood sugar levels drastically, or have other effects that are entirely unknown.

That's the danger of using chemicals to induce things in the body; we've got a lot of mechanisms that do double-duty, and messing with one thing often has other effects as well. Hence why I keep saying that exercise is the only thing I know is safe and effective at triggering this mechanism to enable fat to be filtered out of the blood... but if this machine required that, it would be rendered kinda pointless.

[ChairmanPoo]

There are only a handful of hormones that induce the release of stored fat into the blood. This includes adrenaline, growth hormone, and testosterone... which as you might guess can have undesirable side effects if administered.

I never said otherwise. I was just saying that strictly speaking aerobic exercise is not the only way to burn fat, strictly speaking.

Everything you didn't want to know about Lipolysis.

I know my lipolysis, man. I had to study all this stuff quite a bit back in my uni days, you know 

That's the danger of using chemicals to induce things in the body; we've got a lot of mechanisms that do double-duty, and messing with one thing often has other effects as well.

Agreed

Hence why I keep saying that exercise is the only thing I know is safe and effective at triggering this mechanism to enable fat to be filtered out of the blood.

I recall there was one drug that helped quite a bit, I don't recall the details. It got banned a couple of years ago because of side-effects, and right now the only approved drug in this issue is one that prevents intestinal absorption (to a point). It's not too effective, and unless it's taken alongside a diet, the diarrhea due to unabsorbed fat is considerable

[Solifuge]

Sorry there Chairman, I wasn't directing that link at you. It was getting relevant to the discussion, and I figured it would help people who haven't studied it keep up... the same reason I tend to speak in more general terms.

[MaximumZero]

I, for one, appreciate you dumbing it down, Soli.

[Solifuge]

As an aside, I love that we can have this discussion... that a dude named ChairmanPoo and another dude representing himself with an upside-down cartoon cat can be debating the cellular mechanics of fat storage in order to decide if a fat-burning machine would be an ethical or worthwhile idea.

I wonder what the Forums of old would think of us if they could see us now.