Good news for obesity patients… Capsule deceives the stomach into feeling full
Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a method to trick the stomach into not consuming a large amount of food by using a digestible capsule that vibrates inside.
According to the detailed research paper published in the journal Science Advances, these vibrations activate the stretch receptors that sense when the stomach is inflated, creating a false sense of fullness.
The researchers explained, “When you consume a large meal, your stomach sends signals to your brain that create a feeling of fullness, helping you realize that it’s time to stop eating.”
The stomach filled with liquids can also send these messages, which is why diet specialists often recommend drinking a glass of water before meals, as reported by “Medical Express.”
In animals given this pill 20 minutes before eating, researchers found that this treatment not only stimulated the release of hormones indicating satiety but also led to a reduction in the animals’ food intake by approximately 40%.
The team says there is much to learn about the mechanisms that affect human body weight, but if additional research indicates that this technology can be safely used on humans, such pills could provide a new way to treat obesity.
Shreya Srinivasan, a former graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a postdoctoral researcher, who is now an assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Harvard University, says, “For someone looking to lose weight or control their appetite, taking this capsule before each meal could be an option.”
She added, “This could be really exciting because it offers an option that may reduce the side effects seen with other existing drug treatments.”
In this study, Srinivasan and a team of researchers designed a capsule the size of multivitamins containing a vibrating element. When the pill (powered by a small silver oxide battery) reaches the stomach, the acidic stomach fluids dissolve the gelatin membrane covering the capsule, completing the electronic circuit that activates the vibrating motor.
