Microimplant for obesity

It will make the body full almost without food

Svetlana Maslova, High-tech+

The device reduced the weight of rats by 40% without any additional effort. The implant makes the brain think that the body is full, after a small portion.

About 700 million children and adults worldwide are obese. To combat the disease, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (USA) have developed a microimplant that controls saturation. The team conducted experiments with animals and achieved amazing results, according to the university's website (Implantable device aids weight loss).

The microimplant generates soft electrical impulses from natural abdominal movements that connect the brain and stomach through the vagus nerve.

The impulses correlate with the movement of the stomach, enhancing the natural control over the amount eaten.

Such gentle stimulation causes the brain to consider the body full even after a small portion of food. The effect of the implant helped the rats lose 40% of their weight. Without it, after 12 weeks, the rats resumed their usual diet and returned to their previous weight.

The device is safe and does not require complex maintenance, the authors emphasize. The implant does not even need external recharging: it uses the contraction of the walls of the stomach to power its generators.

Scientists see great advantages and prospects in the use of the new device compared to the gastric bypass surgery that is common today. The team hopes to conduct clinical trials soon.

In the fight against obesity, another group of scientists from the United States has developed a method of amplifying a copy of a gene associated with obesity. Their new technology literally activates a gene without using genome editing. The results were very impressive.

Article by Yao et al. Effective weight control via an implanted self-powered vagus nerve stimulation device is published in the journal Nature Communications – VM.

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