Back in the early 2000s, Gastric Band Surgery (LAP-Band) was seen as the new frontier in weight loss. However, by 2019, it accounted for only 0.9 percent of all bariatric procedures due to smaller-than-expected weight-loss results and a high rate of complications, according to Columbia Surgery. It's been replaced by other surgical interventions, mainly sleeve gastrectomy, which "removes most of the stomach—reducing the size of the stomach and simultaneously reducing the production of the hunger hormone ghrelin," Columbia explains.
Of course, today's weight-loss drugs offer a non-invasive alternative, with an estimated 15.5 million Americans taking these injectable medications. But they come with side effects, too: Everything from stomach paralysis to erectile dysfunction has been reported.
If you'd prefer to avoid the potential side effects of drugs such as Wegovy but would also like a less permanent option than many surgeries, a new weight-loss treatment performed with inflatable gastric balloons could be an option.
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Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently published a paper about the merits of this new treatment.
"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," said Giovanni Traverso, PhD, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the senior author of the study, in a press release.
An intragastric balloon procedure already exists as a temporary weight-loss solution. However, in this treatment, the balloon is never deflated, which can cause the stomach to get used to the feeling of fullness and, therefore, stall weight loss.
"To overcome that limitation, MIT engineers have designed a new type of gastric balloon that can be inflated and deflated as needed," notes the press release. "In an animal study, they showed that inflating the balloon before a meal caused the animals to reduce their food intake by 60 percent."
All gastric balloons are filled with saline and placed in the stomach. They are typically inserted nonsurgically by moving a catheter and endoscope down the throat and into the stomach.
The new method, however, would require an incision in the abdominal wall. Once the balloon is inserted, it will be connected to an external controller with the pump that's attached to the skin.
The researchers liken this to a patient who has a feeding tube. "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. That gives us some confidence in the longer-term compatibility of this system," Traverso said.
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Neil Zixun Jia, PhD, the lead author of the paper, noted that with typical gastric balloons, significant weight-loss results are usually not seen for six months or more. "We will have to evaluate our device in a similar or longer time span to prove it really works better," he said.
If further studies prove the efficacy of inflatable gastric balloons, the treatment could be a viable option for many patients.
"For certain patients who are higher-risk, who cannot undergo surgery, or did not tolerate the medication or had some other contraindication, there are limited options," Traverso pointed out. "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."
