Minimally Invasive Procedure is the Future of Weight Loss

Obesity has been a major problem in the United States for quite some time now. Experts unceasingly work hard to address this problem and help people shed the excess weight and live a normal life. However, recently a new procedure showed promise at helping people with weight issues safely while avoiding major surgery at the same time.

Interventional radiologists have developed a minimally invasive alternative to major operations that used to be used as a solution to stop obesity from worsening. The bariatric arteriale embolization or most commonly known as BAE is a minimally invasive alternative to gastric bypass. It mainly reduces the person's hunger dramatically by decreasing the levels of ghrelin, the hormone responsible for controlling hunger, Futurity reported.

Clifford Weiss, director of interventional radiology research and Bioengineering Innovation and Design at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine said that obesity is one of the most prevalent, dangerous and costly diseases in the United States and in other countries as well. "The interventions currently available to treat this condition are behavioral modifications, diet and exercise, medications, and invasive surgery," he added.

He was also the one who presented the preliminary findings of the obesity trial at the Society of Interventional Radiology's annual meeting this month. According to NBC News, Weiss said that they have specially designed this to be an outpatient procedure that will take less than an hour with very little recovery time need, plus a very high safety profile. He also said that they have seen a 6 percent weight loss among their patient after a month of undergoing the procedure, a 9.5 percent decrease in weight at 3 months, and 13 percent weight loss at 6 months.

For the procedure, an interventional radiologist threads a catheter through the wrist or groin of the patient to have access to specific blood vessels in a precise are of the stomach. As soon as they locked in on their target, they introduce microscopic beads to block blood supply to the spot where the body's "hunger hormone" is produced.

The decrease in blood flow results to an 80 percent decrease in hunger. Also, the beads have been tested to be totally safe. There have been a number of heart and uterine procedures that used the same kind of beads for decades.