Japanese researchers have found a method they believe may be one of the most effective ways to fight fat, but warn that it's quite literally shocking, according to Yukan Fuji (5/8).

A research team made up of medical experts from the National Cardiovascular Center and the Rakuwakai Hospital in Kyoto discovered that running an electrical current through mice increased their levels of a protein called BDNF.

"So what?" wail the overanxious obese seeking a quick cure. Well, BDNF, an acronym for brain-derived neurotrophic factor -- a mouthful as large as those who most need it -- works to suppress the appetite and thus combats corpulence.

Findings by the team are expected to be effective in tackling strokes and metabolic syndrome, the name given to the myriad diseases obesity can bring about. At the moment, shock therapy has only been used on lab rats, but researchers hope to have equipment that will allow it to be used on human patients within three to five years.

"We hope this method will also allow effective weight loss among the disabled," Koji Yanagimoto, the National Cardiovascular Center doctor who headed the research team, tells Yukan Fuji. "It could offer a third path for effective weight loss behind medicine and exercise."

Yanagimoto says his team focused their attention on studying an effect similar to that experienced by birds resting on power lines, where those in contact with high voltages were perfectly safe -- as long as they didn't touch ground and complete the circuit.

They sent a high voltage electric current flowing through an insulated acrylic cage and discovered that BDNF levels in the lab rats increased, which lead to a reduction in the creatures' weight, acted as a preventative of brain atrophy and improved memory function.

It has long been known that direct contact with electrical currents increases the body's BDNF levels, but until the Japanese researchers worked wonders on their rats, the practice had always been deemed too dangerous to pursue.

Yukan Fuji says the researchers imagine creating insulated capsules surrounded by high voltage currents that fatties can enter a few times a week for an easy weight loss session. (By Ryann Connell)