A popular procedure in Europe called gastric ballooning seems like a great alternative to gastric-bypass surgery. All it takes is inserting a balloon into the stomach through the throat and then filling the balloon with liquid.
Unlike gastric-bypass surgery, gastric ballooning is a quick, relatively painless and affordable way to help obese people lose weight. But the Food and Drug Administration has not approved the gastric-ballooning procedure, and it is almost nonexistent in the United States.
Why? This international difference of opinion stems in part from a nagging sense of doubt among American bariatric surgeons and other obesity experts about the balloon's safety and effectiveness. Not a lot of clinical trials have been done, and some experts theorize that the balloon technique isn't drastic enough to reduce ghrelin, a hormone produced in the stomach that increases hunger and that gastric-bypass surgery suppresses.
It doesn't help that the history of the gastric balloon has been marred with controversy. Older intragastric balloon models tended to break down from stomach-acid corrosion, and some even passed into the intestines, where they caused life-threatening bowel obstructions, said Dr. Nicholas Bertha, a bariatric surgeon at St. Clares Health System Center for Weight Loss Surgery in New Jersey.
But Inamed Health, a manufacturer of a newer version called the BioEnterics Intragastric Balloon, states on its Web site that its balloon is made of "durable, elastic, high-quality silicone." And the balloons are left in place for only six months to prevent any corrosion.
Safety concerns aside, Dr. Mitchell Roslin, chief of obesity surgery at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York, said that the stomach eventually "learns" to compensate for the balloon's presence and the weight-loss benefit is lost.
"Long-term [clinical] trials are unlikely to show lasting weight loss for a period of time to make the investment worthwhile," Roslin said.
I don't think this controversy is going to be settled any time soon.
1 comment:
This post is a bit outdated. Inamed got bought by Allergan, who is doing FDA trials.
tens of thousands of balloons have been sold in Europe and they seem to work. Heliosphere has come out with an air filled balloon, and Spatz is developing an adjustable balloon that an stay in longer.
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