“Gastric Pacemaker” may fool our Stomach

The company that invented the heart pacemaker is employing the same technology to trick obese patients into thinking their stomachs are full.

There is a lot of investment out there to get a piece of the us$100 billion obesity market. (The market for the severely obese is $5 billion to $10 billion.)

Medtronic Inc., the world's biggest maker of medical devices is trying to develop a battery-powered gastric pacemaker that causes the stomach to contract, sending signals of satiety to the appetite center in the brain, a small start-up also is working with the famed Mayo Clinic on a device that uses electricity to paralyze the stomach, reducing or stopping contractions that churn food as part of the digestion process.

Despite failures so far of some devices in clinical trials, companies are pushing ahead, convinced that medical devices hold the key to battling obesity. In the past, it’s implantable gastric stimulator, or IGS, failed to prove effective in a clinical trial in achieving excess weight loss after 12 months.

The device is implanted under the skin of the abdomen with electric wires placed on the wall of the stomach. It then "paces" the stomach by delivering small electrical currents that cause the stomach to contract.

Medtronic would also look at its deep brain stimulation technology -- which uses tiny electrodes implanted in specific areas of the brain to affect behavior, movement and other functions -- as a possible treatment for obesity.

Brain stimulation technology is currently approved in the United States to treat movement disorders such as Parkinson's disease and is being studied to treat obsessive compulsive disorder and severe depression.

Another company, Enteromedics Inc. is working with the Mayo Clinic on its own implantable device to fight obesity. But rather than stimulating the stomach like Medtronic's IGS device, its solution is trying to inhibit nerve function by using electrical currents to block the Vagus Nerve, one of five cranial nerves.

The device, called Maestro, is also inserted beneath the skin of the abdomen, with connecting electrical leads placed on the stomach. The electrical pulses block the Vagus Nerve and paralyze the stomach, stopping contractions that churn food as part of the digestion process. The way the device is used is still evolving.

The goal is to slow digestion so that the patient feels sated longer. The device also shuts down the pancreas and the secretions of digestive enzymes. The process effectively causes the patient to absorb less food, and thus calories, just like in gastric bypass surgery.

The future of treating obesity may lie in devices, but today there is not enough data.

Comments

[Diana Walls]

Plese provide me with info on the gastric pacepaker. I am scheduled to have an evaluation, and would appreciate any information on this matter. Could you also advise if ther might be a hospital or doctor doing this procedure in Souther Illinois, per say in a test study group that she could partricipate in. Any time !!My daughter has severe acid reflux and is quite obeise is is overly excited about the project, but her finances are unfortunately flat ! But on the other site on the internet it states that all you require is for the patient to have acide reflux and obesity. Please let me know as soon as possible, it is urgent to us for helping to save her life so she can have a long liffe with her grabson, please help us if at all possible! Thank you for your advanced help and consideration in this matter

stated there are severeral

test groups going on with a signature of a comitment of two years, and she most ashuredly would be a good cantidate and her health is really at rist at the weight she is climbing to. Please contact me at any time with e-mail or brocures at : Diana Walls... 178 The Masters....Georgetown, KY 40324....502-570-9450