![](https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/21162420/SEI_184750495.jpg?width=1200)
The capsule accommodates a vibrating motor powered by a small silver oxide battery. When it reaches the intestine, gastric acid dissolves its outer layer. This causes an digital circuit to shut, which begins the vibration
Shriya Srinivasan, Giovanni Traverso, MIT News
A vibrating capsule that tips the mind into considering the abdomen is full might at some point deal with weight problems. The strategy can be significantly much less invasive than gastric bypass surgical procedure and probably cheaper and fewer vulnerable to negative effects than medication akin to Wegovy and Ozempic.
Giovanni Traverso on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues have developed a capsule across the measurement of an ordinary multivitamin that homes a vibrating motor powered by a small silver oxide battery, which is protected to swallow. When the capsule reaches the intestine, gastric acid dissolves its outer layer. This causes an digital circuit to shut, which begins the vibration.
In an experiment in pigs, a few of the animals got the capsule 20 minutes earlier than being given entry to meals. These pigs ate round 40 per cent much less in contrast with people who weren’t given the capsule. They additionally had increased ranges of hormones of their blood that sometimes sign satiety.
The researchers hope to check the capsule in individuals “soon”, says Traverso, believing it might have potential as an weight problems remedy. “It’s an enormous health problem, with over 40 per cent of the US population, for example, being affected.”
The capsule’s vibration prompts the identical receptors that detect when the abdomen lining is distended after an enormous meal, passing alerts to the mind that it’s full, he says. The prototype model vibrates for half-hour earlier than its battery runs down and it’s handed naturally.
According to Traverso, future variations could possibly be tailored to stay within the abdomen semi-permanently and be turned on and off wirelessly as wanted. The response to the gadget will in all probability be distinctive to the person, he says, nevertheless it could possibly be routinely turned on for a brief interval day by day to typically decrease urge for food and even be managed by a smartphone app to focus on starvation pangs.
Previous analysis by the identical group discovered {that electrical} stimulation of the abdomen lining can truly activate emotions of starvation, probably resulting in therapies for a scarcity of urge for food amongst individuals with most cancers. “I think it’s really exciting because we’re just learning what we’re able to do through stimulation of, in different ways, different parts of the GI [gastrointestinal] tract,” says Traverso. “When we eat, we feel full, and the question is: can we induce that sense of feeling full? Can we create that illusion?”
Topics:
Source: www.newscientist.com