A Balloon You Can Swallow Fights Obesity

In July of 2015 we reported on The Weight Loss Balloon, which had yet to be tested in the United States. Here’s an update on that article:

A new type of stomach-filling balloon can help people drop pounds, and it doesn’t require any surgery to place it, researchers reported Thursday.

Patients can just swallow the deflated balloon, and doctors can use a narrow catheter to fill it with water. The balloon makes it harder to overeat.

A study presented at the Obesity Week meeting in Los Angeles shows the“balloon pill” works at least as well as other stomach balloons to help people lose weight.

“It’s a swallowable balloon, much like a large pill. People will swallow it (and) it will reside in the stomach,” said Dr. John Morton, chief of bariatric surgery at Stanford University and president of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.

“It then gets inflated with a very thin catheter. Roughly about half a liter of fluid goes into that balloon,” Morton, who was not involved with the study, told NBC News.

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