A ``capsule that vibrates in the stomach'' that allows you to lose weight just by swallowing has appeared, promising a new obesity treatment that replaces drugs and surgery
There are many people who aim to be 80% full for diet and health reasons, but end up eating until they are full. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have announced that they have succeeded in reducing food intake by stimulating the feeling of fullness with a capsule that vibrates in the stomach.
A vibrating ingestible bioelectronic stimulator modulates gastric stretch receptors for illusory satiety | Science Advances
Engineers develop a vibrating, ingestible capsule that might help treat obesity | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology
https://news.mit.edu/2023/engineers-develop-vibrating-ingestible-capsule-1222
A vibrating pill could help treat obesity, pig study finds | Live Science
https://www.livescience.com/health/obesity/a-vibrating-pill-could-help-treat-obesity-pig-study-finds
When your stomach becomes full with food or drink, special cells called mechanoreceptors send signals to your brain that your stomach is distended. Upon receiving this signal, the brain stimulates the secretion of various hormones including insulin, and these hormones work together to create a feeling of fullness and issue a command to stop eating.
Shriya S. Srinivasan, a mechanical engineer at MIT and a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital, et al. Based on past research that reported that the sensation of bloating could be induced by applying artificial vibrations to the mechanoreceptors in the stomach, we hypothesized that ``a feeling of bloat could be induced by applying artificial vibrations to the mechanoreceptors in the stomach,'' and we will conduct experiments to verify this hypothesis. I decided to.
The following is the ``Vibrating Ingestible BioElectronic Stimulator (VIBES)'' developed by the research team for experiments. The size is the same as a typical multivitamin capsule, and it contains a small silver oxide battery and a vibration motor.
VIBES is coated with gelatin that dissolves in stomach acid, and when the outer layer dissolves approximately 4 minutes after swallowing, a spring mechanism is activated and the motor begins to vibrate. The VIBES will then vibrate for about 30 minutes before finally being ejected. When the research team conducted a drug resistance test on VIBES, it was confirmed that it is safe and does not cause any damage to the digestive system even if it remains in the stomach for a full day and in the intestines for more than a week. Ta.
The research team that developed VIBES next conducted an experiment in which they gave VIBES to pigs whose stomach structure is very similar to humans and tracked a total of 108 feedings. The results showed that pigs that activated VIBES 20 minutes before feeding had a 40% lower food intake and slower weight gain than pigs that did not.
By comparing blood samples before and after the device was activated, the researchers also found that pigs fed VIBES also had lower levels of
'We were surprised by the strong hormonal response to the vibrating capsules,' said Benjamin Terry, an expert in ingestible electronics at Brigham Young University who was not directly involved in the study. 'It seems that the bodies of the pigs who drank the food were under the illusion that they had eaten a satisfying meal,' he told the science news site Live Science.
The pigs in the experiment were healthy, showed no signs of discomfort or illness, and did not suffer from diarrhea. Additionally, an examination conducted by an endoscopist after the experiment revealed that no injuries, inflammation, perforation , or obstruction were observed in the pigs' gastrointestinal tract.
The MIT research team believes that VIBES could be an alternative approach to treating obesity, replacing expensive injectable drugs and safety concerns such as gastric bypass surgery, and plans are underway to mass produce VIBES with human clinical trials in mind. It is said that there is.
'While some effective obesity treatments are prohibitively expensive for many people, our device could be scaled up to make it fairly cost-effective,' said Srinivasan, lead author of the paper. 'We are looking forward to seeing how VIBES will change the treatment of people who cannot choose the advanced and expensive treatments that are currently available.'
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