A new method of losing weight without dieting

Deception of the balance organ helped to lose weight without dieting and exercise

Oleg Lischuk, N+1

A small pilot study conducted by American scientists has shown that electrical stimulation of the balance organ helps to effectively reduce body weight. The report on the work (McKeown et al., Modulation of body mass composition using galvanic vestibular stimulation) was presented at the annual congress of the Society of Neuroscience Neuroscience 2016 in San Diego and published in the collection of abstracts of the event.

There is a concept that body weight is "embedded" in a person initially and should be under the control of the hypothalamus. It is supported by several studies, the participants of which, for a long time consuming a high-calorie diet (in some cases up to 10 thousand kilocalories per day, which is four times the norm for an adult male) and avoiding physical exertion, unexpectedly gained little weight. The mechanisms of this phenomenon have not been sufficiently studied, however, in animal experiments it turned out that artificially induced vestibular disorders lead to weight loss due to fat, and this occurs with the participation of a specific vestibulohypothalamic nervous pathway.

The staff of the University of California at San Diego tried to reproduce a similar effect in humans. To do this, they used the technology of galvanic vestibular stimulation (DHW). It consists in the fact that with the help of electrodes placed on the skin behind the ears, weak electrical stimuli are applied to the vestibular roots of the vestibular cochlear nerves, which activate the balance organ. At the same time, a person experiences a feeling of swaying or other changes in the position of the body in space.

During the pilot study, scientists performed DHW on seven overweight or obese volunteers for four months. Stimulation was carried out on both sides of the head with a sinusoidal current of up to two milliamps (depending on portability) and a frequency of 0.5 hertz. Participants received up to four hour sessions of DHW per week, the total duration of stimulation ranged from 20 to 40 hours. Three more participants included in the control group were simulated DHW. The diet and physical activity of the volunteers did not change. The mass of their adipose tissue was measured at the beginning and end of the study using two-energy X-ray absorptiometry.

By the end of the experiment, the members of the experimental group had lost an average of about eight percent of the adipose tissue mass (up to a maximum of 16 percent). A small weight gain was observed in the control group. Biochemical analysis of the participants' saliva showed that after the DHW, the content of the "saturation hormone" leptin increased in it.

According to scientists, prolonged DHW most likely acts through the Kelliker-Fusee parabrachial nucleus, which is located in the bridge of the brain and integrates vestibular, sympathetic and parasympathetic activity, modulating the function of the dorsomedial hypothalamus (this structure is responsible for regulating appetite, thirst and body weight). Thus, stimulation reconfigures the "embedded" mass index in the direction of its decrease, the researchers write.

"The results were significantly better than we expected," admitted one of the authors of the work, Jason McKeown, in a Science News note Zap to the head leads to fat loss. According to him, the team is currently preparing more large-scale tests of the technology.

Previously, the DHW technology was used in a helmet for remote control of human movement and headphones for VR glasses, which add a sense of direction and speed to virtual reality.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  17.11.2016