From weight loss jabs to vibrating pills, the obesity crisis has spawned myriad innovations to help people shed pounds.
Now scientists have overhauled the humble gastric balloon – producing a device that inflates and deflates to keep it effective for longer.
Gastric balloons have been around for decades: such devices are temporarily placed in the stomach and inflated with air or fluid to create a feeling of fullness and reduce the desire to eat.
But over time these devices become less effective, with weight loss often hitting a plateau – possibly because the body grows accustomed to the sensation the balloon creates.
Now experts say they have created a gastric balloon that can be inflated just before eating and contracted afterwards, simulating the presence, and emptying, of food in the stomach.
“What we try to do here is, in essence, simulate the mechanical effects of having a meal,” said Giovanni Traverso, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s hospital, and the senior author of the study.
Traverso noted that some gastric balloons can already be increased in volume over time, but said that 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 journal Device, Traverso and colleagues report how the team initially came up with two approaches: a balloon that can be expanded using a motorised device with mechanical arms, and a balloon that can be inflated via a small pump connected to a wearable controller pack.
The team decided to pursue the latter, reasoning it was safer and more reliable. This balloon, they add, can be inserted into the stomach via the mouth using a long, flexible tube and then connected to the external unit via an incision in the abdominal wall – a procedure already used in humans to fit feeding tubes.
The researchers then tested the device in three pigs, comparing the amount of feed remaining after the animals’ meals when they had no device fitted, when the gastric ballon was fitted but not inflated, and when the device was inflated.
The results reveal the pigs showed a reduction in food intake of more than 60% when the balloon was expanded before eating, compared with the other two conditions.
Traverso said the team must now carry out studies to explore if the device does indeed prolong the effectiveness of the gastric balloon.
While weight loss jabs and pills have boomed in recent years, Traverso added that it was important there were a range of options available.
“What we recognise is that there are individuals that could benefit, that either don’t want to go for full surgery or [are] intolerant to the medications,” he said.
Dr Simon Cork from Anglia Ruskin University, who was not involved in the work, said the study presented an interesting development of a longstanding weight loss procedure that aimed to mimic satiety, although he noted the authors did not report changes in body weight.
“Short-term reductions in body weight through calorie restriction, which is what this device is promoting, can lead to physiological adaptations such as hunger and tiredness, which promote weight regain. It is well established that gastric balloons do not alter this physiological process and therefore their effects on long-term weight loss are typically poor,” he said. “The results for long-term weight loss will be crucial to understanding whether this provides a substantial advancement on existing weight loss methods.”