*For medical professionals only
It's not easy to say it's easy to lose weight, but it's really hard to say it's difficult, otherwise 42% of adults in the United States will be obese. It's good that you can successfully lose weight by making lifestyle changes on your own will, but having to use medication and surgery has its own problems.
There was a time when bariatric surgery was very hotly discussed, it is indeed very effective for weight loss, and it can already be implemented through laparoscopic minimally invasive, but after all, it is still an invasive treatment option, which will have a greater impact on the patient's life, and the price is not cheap.
Intragastric balloons (IGBs) can "crowd" the stomach capacity, stimulate the vagus nerve and create the illusion of fullness, thus achieving less eating. However, the long-term effect of intragastric balloon in practical application is not good, and there are more serious complications, and the safety is not good.
Recently, the MIT team published a research paper in Science Advances, and scientists have developed a vibrating capsule (VIBES) that can stimulate the inner lining of the stomach ganglia (IGLE) before meals to produce a feeling of fullness, effectively reducing food intake.
Diagram of the title of the dissertation
Vagus nerve signaling is an important negative feedback loop for satiety and stimulates the production of appetite-suppressing hormones after food ingestion.
The shock capsule designed by the researchers can be taken orally, about 3 cm in size, and the gel shell dissolves to activate the circuit when it is submerged in gastric juice. After testing, the average dissolution time of the capsule was 4.3±1.2 minutes, which was enough for the capsule to enter the stomach through the esophagus, and the active time of vibration was about 38.3±1.83 minutes. The physical and chemical properties of the capsule are stable, and the long-term operation will not produce a large amount of heat, which is relatively safe.
The researchers chose 4-6-month-old pigs as experimental subjects because the gastric anatomy of pigs is very similar to that of humans, which is widely used in the evaluation of gastrointestinal biomedical devices.
The researchers first inflated the pig's stomach through an endoscope to simulate the stomach with different degrees of fullness, recorded the corresponding neural activity, and then tested different capsule vibration parameters to replicate the same neural activity. The results of the experiment showed that the displacement amplitude of the capsule can exceed 1 mm at the vibration frequency of 64-100 Hz, and the neural activity formed at this time is very similar to "satiety".
The vibrating capsule stimulates nervous activity similar to satiety
The researchers examined hormone secretion associated with feeding behavior and satiety in pigs at different points after the vibratory capsule was activated, and found that the vibrating capsule resulted in a significant decrease in ghrelin (i.e., the hunger hormone) and an increase in insulin levels, which are typical postprandial hormonal changes. Levels of C-peptide, which is associated with insulin synthesis, GLP-1, which enhances insulin secretion, and Pyy, an appetite suppressant, were also significantly increased.
The above data can show that shock capsules can create false satiety and induce related metabolic reactions.
Change in levels of relevant markers
The researchers also looked at the effect of shock capsules on long-term food intake. Due to the percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) used in the experiment, two controls were set up: a control group and a sham group. In the experiment, the pigs "enjoyed" 30 minutes of stomach health care before eating in the morning and afternoon each day, and the food they ate within 30 minutes after the meal was counted as food intake, and a total of about 100 meals were evaluated.
Even if the feeling of satiety was false, but full is full, the pigs in the shock capsule group ate significantly less food, with an average of 31% less than the normal eating pigs. Naturally, the weight gain of these pigs was not as rapid as that of the control group.
It's easy not to be deceived anymore, as long as the vibration capsule is not activated, the pig's food intake will immediately return to normal levels, indicating that there is no long-term effect on the nerves (is there no plateau).
The shock capsule significantly made the pigs eat less
The researchers also used a deep Xi model to analyze the image data of the daily activities of the pigs, and found that the pigs in the vibrating capsule group spent less time on positive behaviors, which the researchers believe is because the pigs already feel full, so they will naturally reduce foraging and other activities.
Finally, the vibrating capsule is really safe, with two vibration massages a day, and no abrasions, irritation or inflammation were observed in the stomachs of the pigs, and the pigs' daily life was normal.
It seems that this stomach health care is really effective!
Resources:
[1]https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj3003
The author of this article丨 Dai Siyu