Stomach Pacemaker Suppresses Appetite
Consumer Conscious
A type of pacemaker for the stomach, an implanted electrical device that fools the body into feeling full, appears to be an effective alternative to radical digestive surgery for helping obese people shed large amounts of weight.
If it proves out in larger studies, the experimental device could offer a new way to help very large people slim down when they cannot lose weight on diets or with appetite-suppressing drugs. Researchers presented preliminary data on the usefulness of the approach to show its safety.
Surgical techniques that shrink the stomach and reroute the digestive tract are the only highly reliable way to make obese people lose weight. However, this is major surgery that carries significant risk, including a one- percent chance of death and researchers are searching for ways to do the job more safely.
The new device is called an implantable gastric stimulator and is similar to a cardiac pacemaker.
Instead of stimulating the heart, this pacemaker is attached to the wall of the stomach and is intended to reduce feelings of hunger.
The researchers implanted the devices in 30 obese women and men whose average weight was 242 pounds. Their average body mass index (BMI) was 42. The healthy cutoff for the height-to-weight ration is 25; 30 is considered obese.
After a year with the implant, two-thirds of the volunteers had lost weight. The average was an 18 percent drop in their excess weight.
While the results of this study are very promising, there is still a long way to go; however, researchers feel this is a very exciting breakthrough in this field.
Surgery to help people lose weight is now one of the fastest growing operations in the United States and will be done on an estimated 100,000 people this year. About ten percent of patients have serious complications, such as hemorrhage, pneumonia, infection and blood clots.
