Can Vibration Really Reduce Fat?

Some days ago, I read an interesting health report relating to weight reduction.

"Vibration Can Fend Off Fat"

The heading straightaway strike my attention. Before I started to read the details, I had this thought in my mind:

"Overweight or obesity is a risk factor for heart disease. If the finding is true, then fat people do not need vigorous exercise, medication or even proceeding to reduce their unhealthy and unwanted fats."

It this true? Not really!

When I continue reading, I found that the research was only done on "young mice". Whether it can work for humans will still require further researches to confirm.

According to a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences released on October 22, 2007, short bursts of low intensity vibration can prevent stem cells in "young mice" from turning into fat cells. These preliminary findings did suggest that vagorous exercise is not the only means to prevent weight gain, at least in the young.

Mechanical stimulation may stop accumulation of fat by turning immature or progenitor cells into muscle or bone cells rather than fat cells. If this could be replicate in humans, it is possible and will be helpful to prevent childhood obesity, which is now a big headache for many countries.

What the researchers at Stony Brook University in New York state did in the study is to place the mice on a vibrating platform for 15 minutes every day for 15 weeks resulted in almost 30 percent less body fat than a control group of mice that were put on a stationary platform.

"This could be a non-pharmalogical way of controlling susceptibility to obesity in young people." After making the statement, the researchers further clarified that it would not make fat kids skinny but it could somehow control their propensity for getting heavy. By limiting the weight gain in the young may help these kids prevent from getting diabetes and cardiovascular disease later in life.

Obesity has long been regarded as a metabolic or fat-burning disorder but the study indicated that there may also be a developing element.

The actual physiological impact of vibration is still unclear. What the scientists can assume is that "vibration causes muscles to contract and relax, and this strengthens the muscles and exerts pressure on the bones."

Nevertheless, one should not take the study as an endorsement of some of the vibrating platforms marketed as exercise machines. As the researchers cautioned, the dangerously high levels of vibration may cause lower back pain, percussive injuries to the brain and certain cardiovascular disorders.