A slimming implant implanted into the stomach and inducing satiety was developed by the team of prof. Xudong Wang from the University of Wisconsin - Madison (USA). The research on the implant was reported by the journal "Nature Communications".
Implant constructed by scientists from the team of prof. Wanga is less than 1 centimeter in diameter. It is implanted into the stomach non-invasively, and when placed in place, it produces electrical impulses that stimulate the vagus nerve, and through it - the brain. As a result, the patient with an implant feels full after a few bites of food.
Vagal stimulation implants already exist. One of them is, for example, Maestro, approved by the FDA (US Food and Drug Administration) in 2015. It works by completely disrupting any communication between the brain and stomach, but for this it needs a complicated controller and large batteries that need to be recharged several times a week with an external charger. The Wang implant has the advantage that it does not contain complicated electronics and does not need a power supply. He is energized by the natural movements of his stomach.
However, let's not be too optimistic, and do not look for a clinic in Poland that performs procedures of implanting a new implant. Research on it is currently at the stage of trials on rats. It is also disturbing that although the tests showed that after implantation of the implant, the animals lost about 40 percent. weight, but when it was removed after 12 weeks and returned to their previous diet, their weight also returned to the previous value. The implant therefore loses weight when we use a proper diet at the same time and, as you can see, it does not lose weight permanently.
Prof. Wang is a world-class expert in the field of energy generating devices. He constructed, among others implantable nanogenerators powering the human heart and a wound healing bandage driven by the movement of the body. The new slimming implant has already been patented. Should further animal testing be successful, patient trials will begin.
Prepared on the basis of: PAP