Let’s discuss the safety and effectiveness of various weight loss methods, ranging from Botox and corsets to siphons and tapes.
A moderately obese person act Moderately vigorous physical activity such as cycling or brisk walking would burn about 350 calories per hour, but most drinks, snacks and other processed junk are consumed at a rate of about 70 calories (293 kJ) per minute. So it only takes five minutes to erase an entire hour of exercise.
Enter the AspireAssist siphon assembly.
It is a percutaneous gastrostomy device, ie surgeons section a hole in a person’s stomach and a fistula tunnel through the abdominal wall. Thus, after each meal, the person can connect a suction gadget in the hole and directly drains their stomach contents as you can see below and at 0:47 in my video Extreme weight loss devices.
That means you can canyon into donuts, shoot them through the hole in your stomach, then throw in more donuts. Have your cake and eat it too…two, three and four times over!
It seems to be the quintessential American invention, straight from the country that brought us Jell-O salads, cheese spread and deep-fried Snickers bars. Patients do lose weight, perhaps in part because the fistula can interfere with the relaxation of the stomach wall during a meal. The process also requires drinking plenty of water and careful chewing of food, which can aid weight loss by increasing hydration and slowing down the rate of eating. Sick too started making healthier choices to avoid the unpleasant prospect of gastric regurgitation from unhealthy foods. (The tubing is transparent and, obviously, fried foods look particularly gross as they are pumped out.)
All patients should take supplemental potassium, as it is absorbed by the stomach juices. Otherwise, they risk potassium deficiency (a common complication of bulimia), but most side effects hectare only minor trauma complications. Serious side effects such as abdominal abscesses, hectare rare. The big selling point it is that the siphon device does not change the anatomy of the gastrointestinal tract. That seems like a low bar, but in today’s Wild West world of weight loss procedures, you can’t take anything for granted. Take the duodenojejunal bypass lining, for example.
Gastric bypass surgery works in part by cutting off a section of the small intestine so that it is no longer in the flow of food, thereby helping to prevent calorie absorption. Instead of major surgery, how about just dropping a few feet of plastic tubing to line the intestinal walls? The problem with the EndoBarrier is that it has to be attached to the digestive tract. This is accomplished by 10 barbed hooks causing lacerations, accounting for the majority of the 891 side effects reported in 1,056 patients—almost 9 out of 10 people. Severe penetrating trauma, leading to perforation of the esophagus or liver abscesses, is rarer (occurs in only about 1 in 27 patients).
There was concern lifted up about the “deliciousness” of the AspireAssist stomach pump, but the most critical endoscopic procedure discovered in my research it was the “resurgence” of the gut. Why line the inside of your intestines with plastic to prevent absorption when you can just “thermally catalysis the surface mucosa of the duodenum?” In other words, the intestinal lining has been burned – or rather, “resurfaced”.
The surgeons tried the injection Botox into the stomach walls of obese people, hoping it will partially paralyze their stomach muscles, slow stomach emptying, make people feel fuller more and lose weight. He didn’t work.
Researchers in Sweden tried randomization people to wear corsets for 12 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week, for nine months. And it didn’t work. The study participants simply did not wear the corsets – “they were seen as uncomfortable”. Duh.
“Sanated films” have apparently become widespread is advertised as a weight loss drug since the early 1900s. The fact that live movies have discovered during bariatric surgery procedures suggests that parasite infection may not be particularly effective.
Speaking of disgusting strategies, how about disgust itself? A study is entitled “Harnessing the Power of Disgust: A Randomized Trial to Reduce Food-Calorie Food Appeal Through Implicit Priming” attempted to use subliminal messages to destroy people’s appetites. Just before showing pictures of healthy foods, the researchers briefly presented happy pictures — such as a group of kittens — for 20 milliseconds. This is too fast to register consciously, but the hope was to plant a positive imprint in the brain. Before showing images of high-calorie foods like ice cream, they flashed negative scenes such as a cockroach on a slice of pizza, vomit in a dirty bathroom and a burn wound. Apparently, it worked! Afterwards, subjects reported a reduced desire to eat high-calorie foods, although this was not directly tested. The researchers concluded that subconscious aversion may be “a successful tactic to combat the onslaught of food cues that promote unhealthy eating…”.
The rest of the world looks on, baffled by American machinations, writing comments like “Don’t let them eat cake! A view from across the pond.” A paper in the journal Bariatric Surgery is entitled “What are the Yanks doing?” review of “The US Experience with Implantable Gastric Stimulation”, import electrodes in the muscle layer of the stomach wall. When that didn’t work, electrical stimulation of the colon was tested.
Even more shocking it was studies such as “Repetitive Electrical Brain Stimulation Reduces Food Intake in Humans.” Although deep brain electrode placement is is considered an operation prone to complications, scientists have long he pondered if “placing an electrode somewhere in the brain could make people eat less.” They were holes pierced through the skulls of five obese subjects and wires pushed into their brains for “electrostimulation exploration.” Once the researchers looked around and found spots where they could induce convincing hunger responses, they sent in enough juice to create electrocoagulation lesions. It seemed to work in cats and monkeys, but the researchers I establish that burning holes in people’s brains did not result in weight loss in obese people. Fortunately, as I explained in my book How not to diethealthy, sustainable weight loss is not brain surgery.
Doctor’s note
Depart Is gastric balloon surgery safe and effective for weight loss?.
What about drugs? See Are weight loss pills safe? and Are weight loss pills effective?.
So, what is the best way to lose weight? I wrote a whole book about it! How not to diet focuses exclusively on sustainable weight loss. Borrow it from your local library or pick up a copy from your favorite bookseller. (All proceeds from my books go to charity.) To whet your appetite, check out: Trailer for How not to diet: Dr.’s Weight Loss Guide Greger.
For more on this topic, see the related posts below.
