new type of surgery.

This was in today's paper. Interestingly it is my own surgeon doing this.


A 17-stone woman is to become the first person in Britain to be implanted with a revolutionary electronic device designed to train obese people to eat normally.

The “gastric pacemaker" works by stimulating the nerves linking the stomach to the brain, creating the impression of fullness, even when the patient has eaten very little.

The 53-year-old mother-of-three, from the south of England, is due to be fitted with the device at a private hospital in Southampton this Wednesday.

The device, known as the Abiliti, is seen as a potentially safer alternative to drastic procedures like gastric bypass surgery, and so could offer new hope for the 10m-plus Britons classed as obese.

The scientists who have trialled the device suggest it may one day also be offered to people who are simply overweight, as a way of preventing them ever becoming obese.

The woman, who asked not to be named, said she saw the £10,000 implant as her last chance of losing weight.

“I’ve been big ever since I was a child," she said. I’ve tried everything, including exercise, dieting and drugs, but nothing works. I’d give anything to have a normal shape."

The Abiliti has already been tested on nearly 200 obese people across Germany and Spain, and has just won formal approval for use in Europe.

The trial results show that people fitted with it lost on average 30% of their excess weight in a year.

One patient, a German man who weighed 25 stone when fitted with the device, has since cut down to just over 12 stone and has started competing in triathlons, according to Professor Thomas Horbach, director of surgery at Erlangen University’s academic teaching hospital in Germany, who oversaw the trials.

“Obesity is becoming a huge issue across Europe, but Britain has by far the highest problem. Only America is worse," he said.

Obesity is defined as having a body mass index above 30. Across Britain, obesity rates have tripled in the past two decades, affecting about 24% of all adults. The NHS now spends 15-20% of its hospitals budget treating obesity-related conditions such as diabetes.

The Abiliti, made by IntraPace, an American company, works by targeting the branch of the vagus nerve that controls feelings of hunger.

When someone eats, the stomach becomes distended and produces various hormones and enzymes. The vagus nerve relays these changes to the brain, creating feelings of fullness that prompt most people to stop eating.

In many obese people, however, this system has effectively broken down so that they snack throughout the day.

Horbach said the Abiliti was designed to retrain over-eaters so that they went back to more normal eating patterns. The system works by using a sensor, embedded in the stomach wall, to detect when food has entered the stomach.

It relays this information to a “stimulator" embedded in another part of the stomach, close to the vagus nerve. This excites the nerve, creating powerful feelings of fullness.

However, since a key aim is to train obese people to eat at fixed meal times, the Abiliti has a timer that switches the device off at meal times. Horbach said: “We generally give people 20 minutes to eat their breakfast, then the device comes on."

The operation on the British woman will be carried out at Spire Southampton hospital by James Byrne, a consultant surgeon who specialises in gastrointestinal surgery.

He said the Abiliti implant offered several potential advantages over conventional weight-loss procedures such as gastric bands or gastric bypass surgery.

“Those procedures do work but they are quite drastic because we have to remodel the gut," he said. “The Abiliti is just a simple implant that can be reversed if necessary, so it is much less aggressive."

The implant is fitted with an accelerometer, which measures movement, and wi-fi allowing data about a patient’s diet and exercise levels to be transmitted to a PC or smartphone where it can be viewed by the patient or doctor, or downloaded onto a social networking site (my.abiliti.com) to share with other people fitted with the device

 

Wow! Science never ceases to amaze me. Please keep us updated as the case goes forward. The thought that my doc could know about my eating via his PC would keep me motivated. I am not sure how I would do with fixed eating times. My schedule is so crazy. I try to have fixed times but with the children's sports and other activities it doesn't always work out.

Fascinating!

WOW.  Our bands will be archaic soon maybe even considered barbaric?

Kate,

Those have been around for several years - I remember seeing a story about them on 60 Minutes and doing research because I wanted one. I would guess about ten years ago.  They've only been available in the US in trials, and so far they have not proven successful for most which is very disappointing.  

Maybe they're getting better, though.  That would be great!  It sounds like such a cool option in place of WLS.

cat

 Yes, i read about them a few years ago too but this is the first time I have heard of one being used over here.  Was particularly interested as it is " my " doc.. He did his band training with one of the Australian pioneers ( they are much more pro-band in Oz, one of the earliest places to do them regularly and over 90 % of wls there is the band). He does VSG and RnY, not sure if he personally does the DS but I know his colleagues in the hospital do it. So he is very open minded about the best wls for the individual person.

Kate

It is fascinating and a great concept however I can already see some problems.

1. too high tech, it will definitely break down.  My partner works in IT and there is no way on earth you're going to convince me that something like that has a 0% failure rate. So what happens when the clock breaks, the wifi breaks, etc? You get another surgery to replace it with a new model? Ok, so my brand new cell phone had a glitch and had to be replaced. The NEW cell phone they replaced it with came to me already messed up and I had to call in for a 2nd replacement. The third one they sent has worked reliably for a while. But there's no way I'm playing that game with my body.

2. Privacy issues. I know it sounds paranoid but do you really want your food intake info - not to mention your activity info - beamed to the web and able to be seen by anyone smart enough to access the system without your permission? And if it has an accelerometer, what makes you think they won't eventually add a gps or some sort of tracking device to not just see how much you're moving but where you're moving. Too creepy for me.

3. Too inflexible. Sure it sounds great now that you get blasted with "intense fullness" signals when it's not meal time but what if life happens and you can't eat breakfast in the 20 minute window they give you? What if you're traveling and the only time you can eat is not on your schedule? What if you want to enjoy a party so you limit your food intake all day to allow you to have more that night like a normal person would do? I would feel like a prisoner to this device and it would make me quite unhappy.

All things considered, I don't see it replacing the band or other WLS any time soon.

 I can see exactly what you mean!

But heart pacemakers rarely break down. And of course, many gastric bands are removed and that involves major surgery

Privacy, yes, would need sorting. But that sounds possible.

If it is programmable, then times can be adjusted. And it doesn't tighten or anything so you physically can eat! Just you may not feel the need to eat. Many banded people  have times when they physically cannot get food down, like in the morning. With this,  that woud not happen.

It would not work for those *****ly on their bsnd to make eating literally  impossible but that is not what we are supposed to do anyway.!

Kate

This is interesting stuff and just MIGHT work. I have a spinal stimulator for back pain and it's truely amazing but doesn't work for everyone. I thank God it did for me because I have 3 vertebrae that are half gone from arthritis and the pain was incredible! It takes at least 90% of the pain awayso it is very impressing. Don't know that I would trust this tho since the band didn't work on me I think I would need something more invasive to work for me. The more options we have the better the chance for success and that is the bottom line.

 
I'll be very interested in knowing if this works. I actually read something about this a few months ago.

Btw........love the new pic!