ONLINE DRIVERS MEDIA

No sweat, just some wires? Study shows: It does not take much effort to lose belly fat.

Liposuction is an invasive procedure that is not without risk. Against that background its no wonder that people are marketing alternative methods like high-frequency current therapy as allegedly safe go-to methods to rid yourself of unwanted body fat. The question is: Do these currents actually help you to lose body fat? That is: Can electrocuting your belly "electro-cut" significant amounts of body fat? Practitioners who use this technology will say "yes". From a scientific standpoint, though, the question is difficult to answer, because the use of high-frequency current therapy has been given little attention in the scientific community.

As Kim et al. point out in a recent paper in the J. Phys. Ther. Sci., some previous studies have failed to provide evidence for the effectiveness of high-frequency current therapy in women with obesity, whereas more recent studies have indicated that a high-frequency current therapy decreases female abdominal obesity (Kang. 2005; Han. 2010). Accordingly, their latest study aimed to determine whether high-frequency current therapy can be effectively used to reduce female abdominal obesity.
To this ends, the researchers recruited twenty-two female volunteers who were randomly allocated to either the experimental group (EG) (n = 12; age, 21.17 ± 0.72 years; weight, 63.17 ± 7.91 kg; height, 159.63 ± 4.56 cm) or the control group (CG) (n = 10; age, 21.10 ± 0.74 years; weight, 68.79 ± 11.73 kg; height, 161.69 ± 5.25 cm). Inclusion criteria were as follows:

• a body mass index (BMI) of ?23 kg/m2 and a waist-hip circumference ratio of  ? 0.8013
• no past or present neurological, musculoskeletal, or cardiopulmonary disorders that would have affected health condition;
• no smoking and drinking habits; and
• no psychological problems.

Futhermore, pregnant women were excluded as well. The subjects of both groups were asked to keep a regular dietary habit during the experimental process. A nutritionist drew up a diet plan of 2,000 to 2,500 kcal/day across 3 meals (8 a.m., 1 p.m., and 6 p.m.) for the 6-week intervention. In addition, subjects were asked to avoid extra activities and exercises beyond daily routine activities.

Figure 1. Changes in BMI, waist circumference, subcutaneous body fat and total body fat (%) after 18 sessions of high-frequency current therapy in Korean women (Kim. 2015).

Only the subjects in the EG group were subjected to high-frequency current therapy, with a frequency of 0.5 Mhz. The treatments were performed exclusively on the abdominal region while subjects were supine using specific equipment (CWM-9200; Chungwoo Medical, Seoul, South Korea) for 60 minutes, 3 times per week, for 6 weeks (a total of 18 sessions).

"High-frequency current therapy was performed in 2 phases: 2 sets of 15-minute applications of capacitive electric transfer (CET) and resistive electric transfer (RET) with the pulsed current option (current conduction time, 0.7 seconds; rest interval, 0.3 seconds) for the fist 3 weeks, followed by a 30-minute application of the CET and RET modes with continuous current conduction in the final 3 weeks. The intensity was individualized within a range of 6–7 mA to comfortably adjust the heating sensation during the intervention. An insulated electrode and a stainless steel electrode (8 cm in diameter) were used for the CET and RET modes, respectively. Conductive gel (Body Rubbing Cream; SA’COS, Incheon, South Korea) was used to facilitate skin moisture and current conduction, and high frequency current therapy was delivered by making circular motions of the electrode over the abdominal region at a moving speed of 5 cm/s, avoiding focused pressure on therapeutic areas" (Kim. 2015)

The comparison of the pre- vs. post-data showed here significant main effects of time with respect to waist circumference, abdominal obesity, subcutaneous fat mass, and body fat percentage, which differed significantly between the groups (see Figure 1), "suggesting the effects of high-frequency current therapy in decreasing obesity" (Kim. 2015).
References:

• Han, J. S., Y. O. Park, and C. K. Zhoh. "The effect of high frequency treatment and meridian massage on the abdominal fat pattern of obesity women." J Korean Soc Esthet Cosmeceutics 6.1 (2010): 1-8.
• Kang SO, Won YK. "The effect of high-frequency therapy on women’s obesity." Kor J Aesthet Cosmetol 3 (2005): 121–131.
• Kim, Jin-seop, and Duck-won Oh. "Effects of high-frequency current therapy on abdominal obesity in young women: a randomized controlled trial." Journal of Physical Therapy Science 27.1 (2015): 31-33.
• Song MY, Kim HJ, Lee MJ. "The review on the evidence: effects of nonsurgical localized fat treatments." J Korean Med Obes Res 6 (2006): 1–10.

Does her hair hold the secret to her fitness body? Actually thats unlikely, but it appears possible that a hair analysis could reveals whats keeping you back from a similarly amazing physique.

Hair mineral analyses have been discredited by certain snake oil vendors who use them to sell their "oils" in form of an endless list of "essential" supplements youd have to take if you dont want to end up as dead as the hair they used to produce the analysis. Still, they share one big strength with the more expensive RBC or other cell tests: They give you an idea of your actual calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium balance.

Much in contrast to serum levels, by the way. If those are off, its either due to an acute event (like diarrhea, for example ;-) or you have a real reason to be concerned. There is after all a really good reason these minerals are also called "electrolytes": They are heavily involved in the ion and thus charge-exchange that keeps your heart beating!
Before we get to the actual hair mineral analysis data, lets briefly have a look at another set of striking and not so striking differences between the "normal" subjects and those with established metabolic syndrome:

Figure 1: Serum mineral concentrations, visceral (VAT) and subcutaneous body fat and smoking status in subjects w/ and w/out metabolic syndrome (Choi. 2014)

If you take a closer look at the data in Figure 1 you will see that - aside from marginal, but statistically non-significant differences in serum phosphor - the often-checked total Ca, Mg, K, Na & Ph concentrations did not differ between the two groups.
Moverover, visceral fat was a much more reliable parameter to distinguish the healthy and unhealthy subjects than subcutaneous fat and... a bit to my surprise: Smoking appears to be associated with a lower metabolic risk than non-smoking.

Lets take a look at the hair analysis, now

Much in contrast to the serum levels, the hair mineral analysis did reveal significant inter-group differences and corresponding correlations:
Of all potentially toxic molecules the researchers measured only the levels of arsenic and lead differed significantly between the two groups. The concentrations of cadmium, mercury, and aluminum were not different between the two groups, on the other hand, did not.
References:

• Choi, Whan-Seok, Se-Hong Kim, and Ju-Hye Chung. "Relationships of Hair Mineral Concentrations with Insulin Resistance in Metabolic Syndrome." Biological Trace Element Research (2014): 1-7.
• Rowe, John W., et al. "Effect of experimental potassium deficiency on glucose and insulin metabolism." Metabolism 29.6 (1980): 498-502.