On May 9, Beijing time, according to foreign media reports, when people's diet and physical exercise are insufficient, weight loss surgery may be an effective way to treat obesity. At present, people who don't want to do weight loss surgery have other options - implanting balloons or other implants to suppress appetite in their stomach.
As shown in the figure, the blue and gray parts in the figure are "intragastric satiety induction device (ISD)" implants, which produce a sense of satiety by pressing the stomach. When the implant coating is activated by the laser, it will kill the cells that produce hunger hormone.
Recently, researchers published an article in the Journal of Applied Materials & amp; interface of the American Chemical Society. They have been tested on laboratory animals. They coated the implants with a laser activated dye, which can kill the cells that produce "hunger hormone".
After local anesthesia, the implant can be implanted into the stomach through the mouth. In 2019, scientists hwoon Yong Jung and Jung Hoon park designed a new implant - "intragastric satiety induction device (ISD)", which is composed of a stent located in the lower part of the esophagus. The stent is attached to a disc at the opening of the stomach. There is a small hole in the center of the disc, which can let food pass through. Their experiments on pigs showed that the "gastric satiety induction device" reduced food intake and weight gain by enhancing satiety and reducing ghrelin (produced by cells near the top of the stomach). However, the device is prone to complications, such as gastric acid reflux and gastric juice transfer to the stomach. In the latest study, they hope to find out whether ghrelin can be inhibited by coating the disk of the gastric satiety induction device with a compound that can kill some ghrelin producing cells with a laser, and then the plant can be removed to avoid the side effects associated with the initial design.
In the preliminary study, the researchers coated a layer of methylene blue (a drug approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration) on the gastric satiety induction device, and then put it into the pig stomach. When the dye layer is activated by laser, the coating will release singlet oxygen, an energy form of oxygen that can kill the cells producing ghrelin in the pig stomach and then disappear quickly. After one week, the experimental piglets had a 50% reduction in ghrelin index and weight gain rate compared with the piglets who did not receive weight loss treatment, although the difference rebounded in the following weeks. Unless repeated mild treatment, ghrelin index and weight gain rate could still be reduced.
At present, researchers said that with the further improvement and maturity of the operation, this simple operation may become a new minimally invasive treatment, and finally achieve the effect of helping obese patients lose weight.