Obesity Drug Swells Up in Your Stomach To Make You Feel Full

Obesity Drug Swells Up in Your Stomach To Make You Feel Full – Passes First Trial

With the war on obesity, we have another option in the works. This is interesting as you can see in the pictures below, it swells up. The drug is made from all food type products to it looks to be non toxic as far as side effects. It does not digest through your body, its turns into feces and leaves the body, so it appears when taking the medication at some point you will need a rest room close by. More on this one as it develops. BD

There must be a million ideas to help the many millions of obese Americans lose weight. Today, doctors will get a glimpse at a first-of-its-kind treatment from Boston-based Gelesis, where scientists have created a capsule that expands in the stomach to make people feel full and eat less.

Anyone following the news knows that the obesity epidemic in the U.S. has gotten so big that it poses a threat to the healthcare system, and, simultaneously, represents a monster business opportunity. Health officials now say two-thirds of U.S. adults have become overweight or obese, which raises the risk for a whole raft of other conditions like diabetes, heart attacks, and depression to name a few. Doctors often advise people to eat healthier and exercise more, without much luck. A few biotech companies are racing to win FDA approval of new drugs, but Big Pharma companies have tread cautiously in this field since the fen-phen debacle of the ’90s. Gastric bypass surgery to shrink the stomach can help people, although the procedure carries significant risks.

Once the hydrogel particles are released and filling up with liquid, they put pressure on the walls of the stomach, sending a signal to the brain that says the person is full, and it’s time to stop eating. The particles mix with the food, which keeps the food in the stomach longer. Eventually, stomach acids then shrink the particles during digestion, so they release the water, and they can travel with the food to the small intestine. The particle can re-swell to an extent at that part of the journey, and increase the viscosity in the small intestine so that sugars and fatty acids get absorbed more slowly there. The hydrogels then proceed to the large intestine, release their water, and disintegrate. The Gelesis product is designed so it never gets absorbed into the bloodstream like a drug. It gets excreted in the feces.

The people reported that they felt an increasing sense of fullness (known formally as satiety) after each meal, and that when it was taken before lunch, people felt significantly less hungry at dinnertime. The feeling of hunger didn’t completely go away between breakfast and lunchtime, researchers posited, because people didn’t eat as much at breakfast to fill up their stomach and get the full benefit of the hydrogel.