European Researchers Show a Cooling Vest Helps Reduce Body Fat

According to a report in the British newspaper The Guardian, a collaborative study by the University of Nottingham in the UK and the Leiden University Medical Center in the Netherlands showed that when participants wore a cooling vest and belt for two hours each morning while continuing their daily lives, these participants lost an average of 0.9 kg over six weeks—and all of the weight lost was fat—whereas the control group gained an average of 0.6 kg. These data provide fairly convincing evidence that cooling vests and cooling belts help reduce body fat.

The participants wore the cooling vest and belt over a thin T-shirt; inside were gel cooling packs that had been placed in a freezer the night before and could maintain a temperature of 15 degrees Celsius. The subjects only needed to wear them for two hours the next morning.

Professor Baji of the University of Nottingham, who designed the experiment, said: “Daily exposure to low temperatures activates brown fat, which uses the fat stored in the body to generate heat. ... Wearing a cooling vest may make brown fat more active and have beneficial effects on lipids, blood sugar, and inflammation in the body, all of which help prevent cardiovascular disease.”

I have just studied Physiology at school this semester, and I found this news report very interesting. In class, our physiology teacher joked that in the cold of winter the body produces heat by shivering to supply its basic need for warmth. This study artificially creates just such conditions to promote shivering thermogenesis in the muscles, a process that consumes fat.

The research team is now also studying whether cold-water baths have the same effect on reducing body fat. Their study gives us, beyond dieting and exercise, yet another new weight-loss method that requires no medication.

This study also reminds me of Mr. Jin Yong's wuxia novel The Return of the Condor Heroes; in that novel, the Ancient Tomb Sect practices internal energy with the aid of a “Cold Jade Bed,” which works in much the same way as a cooling vest. That scientists and a novelist should arrive at the same idea independently suggests that human “brainwaves” have something in common. It is just that, as for this “icy-cold” weight-loss method, one wonders whether anyone can actually put it into practice and stick with it.