2023-12-27 10:15:05
It will soon be possible to combat obesity by swallowing a vibrating capsule that reduces hunger before eating.
When food is eaten large enough, the stomach sends signals to the brain that create a feeling of fullness, which helps the person realize to stop eating. A stomach full of fluid can also send these messages, which is why dieters are often advised to drink a glass of water before eating.
A team of engineers led by Shriya S. Srinivasan, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and now at Harvard University, both institutions in the United States, have now devised a new way to take advantage of this phenomenon, using an ingestible capsule that vibrates inside of the stomach. These vibrations activate the same stretch receptors that are responsible for detecting when the stomach is stretched, creating an illusory feeling of fullness.
Specifically, when the stomach stretches, specialized cells called mechanoreceptors sense this stretch and send signals to the brain through the vagus nerve. As a result, the brain stimulates the production of insulin and other hormones. All of these hormones work together to help a person digest food, feel full, and stop eating. At the same time, levels of ghrelin, a hormone that promotes feelings of hunger, decrease.
Srinivasan and his colleagues have managed to control this process by artificially generating signals that the mechanoreceptors that line the stomach perceive as indicating stretching of the stomach. These false signals are achieved through vibrations. Its vibrating capsule activates the stretch receptors in the stomach through the vibrations it generates. These vibrations cause the receptors to falsely perceive that the entire stomach has expanded, in such a way that an illusory feeling of satiety is created, and the urge to eat ceases much earlier than usual.
The current version of the pill is designed to vibrate for about 30 minutes after reaching the stomach, but researchers plan to explore the possibility of adapting it to remain in the stomach for longer periods of time, during which it could be turned on and off automatically. wireless as needed. (Image: research team / MIT News. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
In animals given this pill 20 minutes before eating, researchers found that this treatment not only stimulated the release of hormones that signal satiety, but also reduced the animals’ food intake by about 40 percent. .
There is still much to investigate about the mechanisms that influence human body weight, but if future research suggests that this new technology could be used safely in humans, such a pill could offer a much less invasive, more effective way to treat obesity. cheap and with fewer side effects than current pharmacological or surgical treatments, as the creators of the vibrating capsule argue.
Srinivasan and his colleagues present the technical details of their vibrating capsule in the academic journal Science Advances, under the title “A vibrating ingestible bioelectronic stimulator modulates gastric stretch receptors for illusory satiety.” (Source: NCYT from Amazings)
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