A group of researchers, led by Shriya Srinivasanbiomedical engineer from Harvard University and Giovanni Traverso, gastroenterologist and biomedical engineer from Massachusetts Institute of Technologyhas created a less invasive and potentially cheaper alternative that aims to replace current weight loss methods: a vibrating pill that stimulates the nerve endings in the stomach and tells the brain that it’s time to stop eating.
At the capsule, presented in Science Advances, has been shown to reduce feed intake in pigs by 40% without causing any noticeable side effects. Scientists now hope to turn it into an obesity treatment for humans.
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“It’s a credible and ingenious approach,” he said William of Lartigue, a neurobiologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, who was not connected to the study. “The data seems very convincing,” continued de Lartigue. However, other experts question whether the pill could be turned into a practical weight-loss therapy. The vibrating slimming pill developed by the research team was shown to cause the stomach to feel full. The stomach relaxes when we eat a meal, stimulating nerve endings in the wall of the organ that send messages to the brain. These signals make us feel full, encouraging us to move away from the table. Researchers have been trying to find treatments for obesity that take advantage of this effect.
One approach involves inserting a liquid-filled balloon into the stomach that produces a feeling of satiety. Another option is an implanted device that stimulates the vagus nerve, which transmits impulses from the stomach to the brain. However, the balloons can become less effective over time, as the stomach gets used to the constant stretching, and some patients have died after receiving them. Nerve stimulation devices require surgery and do not appear to result in much weight loss.
An image of the vibrating pill tested at MIT (Credit: Courtesy of the researchers, MIT News)
The test on pigs of similar weight and size to humans
The study features a 31 by 10 millimeter pill that carries a small motor and battery. A gel inserted into the pill prevents the engine from starting. But, the gel quickly dissolves when it comes into contact with stomach fluid, allowing the engine to start turning. When this happens, the pill churns for about 38 minutes, about the time it would stay in the stomach. The researchers hypothesized that these vibrations could stimulate nerve endings that signal satiety. To test the pill, the team of scientists inserted it into the stomachs of young pigs that were similar in size and weight to humans.
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When the researchers measured the electrical activity of a portion of the vagus nerve, they found that the vibrations elicited a firing pattern very similar to that of animals’ stomachs expanding with air, suggesting that the pill tickled the nerve endings of the organ. When the device pulsed into the folds of the gastric mucosa, it rotated, which appeared to provide additional stimulation. The scientists found that the pill induced many of the same changes in hormone levels in the pigs that are involved in eating a meal, including increases in insulin and decreases in the hunger-stimulating hormone ghrelin.
The researchers also monitored the amount of food the pigs gobbled down with one of the pills in their stomachs and found that the animals ate about 40 percent less than control groups that did not receive the pill. The pigs on the pills were also less active, especially after meals.
“It’s like a food coma,” Srinivasan said. “Otherwise – observed Srinivasan – the animals behaved normally, suggesting that they did not find the pills painful.”
Side effects: none
The researchers checked for other possible side effects, such as inflammation of the gastric mucosa, diarrhea and vomiting, but found none. In most experiments, scientists bound the pill inside the animals’ stomachs. Then, they measured how quickly the devices passed through the animals’ digestive systems, finding that they were expelled after about 4 days. “I am hopeful but cynical,” he said Tom Hildebrandt, a clinical psychologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai who studies weight loss treatments, about the approach. “Since similar capsules are already in use for disease diagnosis, the pill will likely be low risk,” Hildebrandt continued.
The doubts of scholars
However, researchers need to answer several questions before they can turn the pill into a useful weight loss option. For example, no one knows how a vibrating pill will feel in a person’s stomach. “A pig can’t tell how uncomfortable it is,” Hildebrandt explained.
Additionally, in obese patients the nerve endings in the stomach may become less sensitive to stretching. It is unclear whether these subjects will respond to pill stimulation in the same way as non-obese people.
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One possible obstacle: the size of the pill
“The size of the capsules is the biggest obstacle,” he argued Allan lover, a Mount Sinai psychologist who studies obesity. “The size of the pills is like the size of the larger capsules that patients take today,” Geliebter added. To control appetite, patients should ingest two per day. “I don’t see people doing that,” Geliebter commented.
“The approach could be taken further and developed into a possible treatment, but it is not ready yet,” Geliebter continued.
Is another obesity treatment needed in the Ozempic era?
Another consideration is whether new mechanical treatments for weight loss are needed, given the success of glucagon peptide-1 agonists, such as Ozempic. “But these drugs don’t work for everyone, they are expensive and can cause side effects, emphasized de Lartigue. “I think there is room for an alternative like the vibrating pill,” emphasized de Lartigue.
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When will tests on humans?
Traverso and Srinivasan hope to perfect the pill and delve deeper into its effects on the body. For example, they have not yet been able to prove that this induces weight loss, as the pigs studied were still growing. To solve the problem, researchers want to study the pill in dogs, whose stomachs are more similar to those of humans. “If we find the funds for this research we could test it on humans within 2 or 3 years,” concluded Traverso.