While bariatric surgery makes the stomach smaller, so less food will fit inside, a patient dedicated to non-compliance can definitely stretch that pouch back out again. Another method seeks to reduce the space available for food, not by tailoring the stomach itself into a smaller receptacle, but instead by filling it with non-food.
This work was done at Peking University First Hospital in Beijing, China:
Oral intragastric expandable capsules taken twice daily before meals reduce body weight in adults with overweight or obesity…
The tactic can cause “mild gastrointestinal adverse events,” but it has the advantage of being a non-invasive, non-permanent intervention. Another desirable feature is a lack of the many side effects that pharmacological methods too often trigger. Oral and intragastric, the capsule enters the mouth and lands in the stomach where it “expands to fill about one quarter of average stomach volume and then passes through the body.”
In the Chinese study, it took 24 weeks (six months, or half a year) for study participants to lose as little as 5% of baseline body weight, which seems paltry compared to some other methodologies.
Much more remains to be discovered about this way of doing things, because of the limitations of this small study in which only fewer than 4% of the subjects had type 2 diabetes. Also, they are characterized as “relatively young,” so they did not experience metabolic or cardiovascular effects that might kick in later. Here is an interesting detail:
Gastrointestinal disorders were reported in 25.0% of participants in the intragastric expandable capsule group compared with 21.9% in the placebo group, with most being transient and mild in severity.
To put it another way, a quarter of the participants taking the real stuff experienced unpleasant side effects — and so did almost as many of the subjects taking imaginary medicine. When people ingest something that is totally inert and inactive, and yet are visited by adverse results, that is the nocebo effect. “A nocebo effect can occur if a person takes a real or active medicine, and can also occur if they are given a placebo.”
Both placebo and nocebo effects are fascinating areas in which a whole lot of additional investigation is obviously needed. There is a lot going on in this realm, including controversy over the ethics. One article says,
Unfortunately, guidance for informing trial participants about trial intervention harms, in a way that is ethical, understandable, and does not produce nocebo effects, is currently under-researched. A recent study suggested that information provided to trial participants often fails to tell them what they wish to know, and that it is presented in a way that is difficult to understand.
Intragastric expandable capsules consist of two naturally derived components, food-grade carboxymethylcellulose cross-linked with citric acid, forming a three-dimensional polymer matrix that rapidly absorbs water and occupies the volume of the stomach and small intestine when administered orally with water before a meal, subsequently producing satiety. Each capsule contains no less than 10 000 highly absorbent cellulose-based hydrogel particles…
Dietary fiber comes in two varieties: soluble and insoluble. Soluble dietary fiber has long been recommended for its stomach-filling effect. It has been found to slow gastric emptying, increase perceived satiety, and significantly aid in appetite regulation. But its usefulness appears to depend on such variables as molecular size and solubility, and food matrix.
In addition, “Viscous soluble dietary fibres are believed to be more capable of inducing satiety compared to non-viscous soluble dietary fibres.” So apparently, “soluble fibres are not all created equal.” One vital area for additional research is the possibility that combinations of soluble fibers might be even more effective than any single type.
Your responses and feedback are welcome!
Source: “Premeal Stomach-Filling Capsule Effective for Weight Loss,” MDedge.com, 02/13/24
Source: “Placebo effect,” Vic.gov.au, undated
Source: “Harmful placebos,” Ox.ac.uk, 12/11/18
Source: “Efficacy and safety of intragastric expandable oral capsules in adults with overweight or obesity,” Doi.org 01/22/24
Source: “Unravelling the Effects of Soluble Dietary Fibre Supplementation on Energy Intake and Perceived Satiety in Healthy Adults,” NIH.gov, 01/06/19
Image by Edward Russell/CC BY 2.0 DEED
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