From weight loss shots to vibrating pills, the obesity crisis has spawned countless innovations to help people shed pounds.
Now scientists have overhauled the humble gastric balloon and produced a device that inflates and deflates to keep it effective longer.
Gastric balloons have been around for decades: Such devices are temporarily placed in the stomach and inflated with air or liquid to create a feeling of fullness and reduce the desire to eat.
But over time, these devices become less effective, with weight loss often reaching a plateau – possibly because the body becomes accustomed to the sensation the balloon creates.
Now experts say they have created a gastric balloon that can be inflated just before eating and then contracted, simulating the presence and emptying of food in the stomach.
“What we’re trying to do here is essentially simulate the mechanical effects of a meal,” says Giovanni Traverso, associate professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and senior author of the study.
Traverso noted that some gastric balloons can already increase in volume over time, but said this often involves an invasive procedure. Instead, the team decided to create a dynamic system. “What we want to avoid is getting used to that balloon,” he said.
Writing in the diary DeviceTraverso and colleagues report how the team initially came up with two approaches: a balloon that can be expanded using a motorized device with mechanical arms, and a balloon that can be inflated via a small pump connected to a wearable controller package.
The team decided to pursue the latter, as it was safer and more reliable. This balloon, they add, can be inserted into the stomach through the mouth using a long, flexible tube and then connected to the external unit through an incision in the abdominal wall – a procedure already used in humans to insert feeding tubes.
The researchers then tested the device in three pigs, comparing the amount of food left after the animals’ meal when they had no device attached, when the gastric balloon was attached but not inflated, and when the device was inflated.
The results show that the pigs showed a reduction in food intake of more than 60% when the balloon was deployed before eating, compared to the other two conditions.
Traverso said the team now needs to conduct studies to investigate whether the device indeed extends the effectiveness of the gastric balloon.
Although pills and weight loss pills have boomed in recent years, Traverso added that it was important that a range of options were available.
“What we recognize is that there are people who could benefit from it who either don’t want to have full surgery or are intolerant to the drugs,” he said.
Dr. Simon Cork of Anglia Ruskin University, who was not involved in the work, said the study presented an interesting development of a long-standing weight loss procedure that aimed to mimic satiety, although he noted that the authors did not report any changes in reported body weight.
“Short-term reduction in body weight through calorie restriction, which this device promotes, can lead to physiological adaptations such as hunger and fatigue, which promote weight gain. It is well known that gastric balloons do not alter this physiological process and therefore their effects on long-term weight loss are generally poor,” he said. “The long-term weight loss results will be crucial in understanding whether this provides a substantial advance over existing weight loss methods.”