Professor Tamaki Mitsuno

Numerous researchers from Asia, Europe and the United States attend this conference, and writings from the hundreds of submissions received each year are included in the conference's proceedings, a publication exceeding 1,000 pages in length.

The professor's winning work, titled Effect of Support Pants on Body Fat Consumption, covered development efforts for women's innerwear products designed to prevent obesity. During the development process, which has been praised for its useful results, 21 young-adult Japanese women wore special underwear to determine amounts of fat burned, and performance of the four different underwear types (no support pressure type, uniformly support pressure type, weak/strong localized support pressure types) were evaluated. Among these types, localized, weak-pressure supportive underwear were observed to most effectively promote burning of fat. It is highly likely that these underwear will be made into commercial products in the future, and these development efforts were lauded for their potential contributions to society.

Professor Mitsuno's supportive underwear was the result of joint development efforts by her and Mr. Yoshida, Akio of Fukuske Corporation, and Shinshu University and Fukuske acquired a joint patent. Both parties are confident that they will be able to commercialize the idea and make it available to consumers in the near future.