Researchers have used tiny bead injections as an experimental obesity treatment. The idea is to place the tiny beads into the stomach’s arteries. The goal was to use this technique to assist people in losing weight and keeping it off for at least a year.
Bariatric Embolization: Tiny Bead Injections for Weight Loss
The study referred to the tiny bead injections as bariatric embolization. Within that research, the participants who received the experimental treatment lost approximately 11 percent of their unwanted weight. After one year, this translated to an average weight loss of about 17 pounds.
That said, it’s important to note that there were only 20 participants in this study. This makes it very small preliminary research. Much more will be required before we can know that tiny bead injections will work for weight loss, said the researchers.
Promising Preliminary Results for Bariatric Embolization
At the same time that this study on the tiny bead injections was small, it was also very promising. The study’s lead author Dr. Clifford Weiss said that “this is a great step forward for this procedure.” Weiss is a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore associate professor of radiology. The research was published in the Radiology journal.
The tiny bead injections were made using microscopic beads sent through a very thin catheter tube, threaded through an artery either in the groin or the wrist until it reached the stomach. There, the injections were made so that the beads would partially block the arteries providing the blood supply to the stomach. As a result, the researchers believed that they could suppress the production of the hormones responsible for signaling the sensation of hunger. As a result, the appetite would shrink.
Very Different Technique
This procedure is very different from other types of obesity treatment. It seeks to alter people’s metabolism in a way that can be compared to weight loss surgery such as bariatric surgery, without the need for any surgery. Using tiny bead injections is considerably less invasive than bariatric surgery and requires notably less recovery time, said the researchers.
The average BMI of the participants in the study was 45, which meant that they were “severely obese”. Their average weight was greater than 300 pounds. They were, on average, more than 150 pounds overweight. The participants who received the tiny bead injections lost an average of about 8 percent of their excess weight – that is the amount over their healthy body weight – within the first month following the procedure. Those participants reported a considerable reduction in hunger. Though this effect decreased significantly after that first month, they still reported that they were less hungry after the procedure than they were before.
