New Weight-Loss Drug Bloats Your Stomach to Make You Eat Less

If you fill your stomach with a gel-like substance that swells so much that very little room is left for food, will you lose weight? Researchers at Gelesis, a Boston-based company, think so. They have been testing a polymer or hydrogel called Attiva. The substance is about the size of a sugar grain, but when the grains are consumed in a capsule along with water, the grains swell into a gel-like substance. As the gel expands in the stomach, little room is left for food. The gel also stretches the stomach walls and stimulates nerve fibers that tell the brain the stomach is too full to receive any more food.

Rats given this gel stopped eating for about 18 hours. Early tests with humans produced a sensation of fullness after meals and a decrease in hunger between meals. But these particles did more than limit food intake. When they finally leave the stomach (by shrinking and going back to their granular form) they enter the small intestine where digested food is absorbed into the bloodstream. Here they swell again and trap digested sugar and fatty acids in their viscous matrix. Think of partially firm Jell-O with bits of fruit floating around in it. The polymer is the Jell-O-like substance that captures bits of sugar and fatty acids. Eventually, as the polymer shrinks again, the sugar and fatty acids are released and slowly trickle into the blood stream. The gel continues on its way through the large intestine, finally disintegrates and passes out of the body.

More...