posted
Could be an interesting play if any public corporations ever get involved.
Fat-busting laser may help cellulite, acne, heart disease By Kathy Jones Apr 10, 2006, 13:29
April 10 (foodconsumer.org)- American scientists have developed a new tool to fight fat - a high intensity laser beam. This beam, which originates from a machine called a free-electron laser (FEL), targets and melts fat under the skin and could be the best weapon to fight heart disease, cellulite and acne.
This path breaking laser technique has been devised by researchers at the Wellman Center for Photomedicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School and the Department of Energy's Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. Using this technique it is possible to target and melt fat without causing any adverse effects on the overlying skin.
The findings of this study are to be presented at the 26th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Laser Medicine and Surgery (ASLMS) in Boston, Mass.
For the study, researchers conducted the experiment in two phases. In the first phase, they used surgically discarded normal tissue to extract human fat and exposed it to varying wavelengths in the fat absorption spectrum. This spectrum typically lies in the infrared laser light (800-2600 nanometers).
At the Free-Electron Laser facility at Jefferson Lab, the researchers tabulated the effect of the selected wavelengths on the fat and compared the results to similar experiments with pure distilled water. They found that the water was efficiently heated at most selected wavelengths. However, three wavelengths, 915, 1210 and 1720 nm were found to be more effective in heating fat than water.
In the second phase of the experiment, the researchers exposed fresh, intact pig skin-and-fat tissue samples to free-electron laser infrared light in the range of two wavelengths. The two inches thick samples were exposed to 1210 and 1720 nm of infrared laser light. To ensure that the experiment was conducted in conditions that closely mirrored potential surgical conditions, the researchers placed the pig skin near a cold window, which served as a cold compress prior to laser beam exposure.
The skin was then zapped with beams of infrared laser light in the range of eight to 17 mm wide for 16 seconds. It is found that the 1210 nm wavelength was able to heat the pig fat to a depth of 1 cm without causing any adverse effect to the overlying skin.
At the same wavelength, the heat generated in the fat was twice that of the overlying skin, while at 1720 nm, it was 1.7 times that of the overlying skin. The researchers feel that the results of the study are proof of the fact that using selective photothermolysis (selectively heating tissues with light) has a myriad of medical applications.
According to Dr Rox Anderson, the lead author of the study and a practicing dermatologist at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the researchers are especially enthusiastic about use of this technique to target sebaceous glands, the principal cause of acne.
"The root cause of acne is a lipid-rich gland, the sebaceous gland, which sits a few millimeters below the surface of the skin," Anderson said. "We want to be able to selectively target the sebaceous gland, and this research shows that if we can build lasers at this region of the spectrum, we may be able to do that."
Dr Anderson is hopeful that the laser treatment could eventually replace the currently available treatment for acne, which uses a drug called isotretinoin (trade name Accutane). This particular drug has a number of adverse effects, most notably the high incidence of birth defects in children whose mothers have used the drug in pregnancy.
Dr. Anderson is also hoping that the treatment will work in diseases, which have a high degree of lipid-rich tissues like atherosclerosis, the leading cause of heart attacks and strokes. Atherosclerosis is the deposition of fatty plaques in blood vessels, which could be fatal when they rupture.
This artery disease kills over a million people every year. Previous attempts at using laser to treat the disease have ended in failure, but the current treatment promises to stabilize lipid plaques in a more efficient manner. "We can envision a fat-seeking laser, and we're heading down that path now," Anderson observed.
The laser therapy could also be an effective tool to combat unwanted cellulite, a dimpling of the skin caused by the deposition of fat in the dermis layer of the skin. The condition, also called orange peel effect, affects more than 85 percent of postpubescent females and is a cosmetic disaster. Previous therapies including liposuction have not offered any satisfactory remedy to this condition.
The researchers plan to develop laser devices that are capable of producing desirable fat-busting results, according to Dr Anderson.
-------------------- It is impossible to make anything foolproof because fools are so ingenious. Posts: 3311 | From: St. Louis | Registered: Feb 2005
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posted
They should install these lasers in a special room next to the kid's ball pit at every McDonald's and Burger King in America.
Posts: 75 | From: Tennessee | Registered: Apr 2006
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