GLP-1 meds are all the rage for weight loss nowadays, but not everyone can safely take the drugs to shed pounds. Invasive weight-loss surgeries can often be a tough sell, too.
Now, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) say they've developed an alternative: A small, implanted gastric balloon that people can inflate or deflate to feel full or not.
Early studies showed the gastric balloon helped animals cut their daily food intake by 60%.
“The basic concept is we can have this balloon that is dynamic, so it would be inflated right before a meal and then you wouldn't feel hungry. Then it would be deflated in between meals,” explained senior study author Giovanni Traverso. He's an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT and a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.
His team published its findings Dec. 3 in the journal Device.
Gastric balloons are not new as a weight-loss aid, and stationary balloons filled with saline have long been approved for weight control by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
There's a problem with these devices, however: Over time, the trick wears off and the stomach becomes desensitized to the fake sense of fullness the balloon provides.
"Gastric balloons do work initially," Traverso explained in an MIT news release. "Historically, what has been seen is that the balloon is associated with weight loss. But then in general, the weight gain resumes the same trajectory."
His team wanted to tweak the gastric balloon in a key way, however.
"What we reasoned was perhaps if we had a system that simulates that fullness in a transient way, meaning right before a meal, that could be a way of inducing weight loss," Traverso said.
The new gastric balloon is implanted within the stomach via an incision in the abdominal wall. It's also connected to an external control device that can be attached to the skin and contains a pump that inflates and deflates the balloon when needed.
Similar devices are already being used to help certain incapacitated patients take in nutrients.
“If people, for example, are unable to swallow, they receive food through a tube like this. We know that we can keep tubes in for years, so there is already precedent for other systems that can stay in the body for a very long time," Traverso noted. "That gives us some confidence in the longer-term compatibility of this system."
Right now, the device has only been tested in month-long trials in animals, where it did show impressive results in curbing appetite and food intake, the researchers said.
More study is needed, including clinical trials in people, but Traverso believes the device has real potential.
"For certain patients who are higher-risk, who cannot undergo surgery or did not tolerate the [weight-loss] medication or had some other contraindication, there are limited options,” he said. “Traditional gastric balloons are still being used, but they come with a caveat that eventually the weight loss can plateau, so this is a way of trying to address that fundamental limitation."