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An inflatable intragastric balloon for weight loss developed
Intragastric balloons – silicone inflatable balloons filled with air or saline and placed in the stomach – can help people lose excess weight by creating a feeling of fullness and overeating. However, this effect can wear off over time as the stomach becomes accustomed to the feeling of fullness.
To overcome this limitation, engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a new type of stomach balloon that can be inflated and deflated. In an animal study, they showed that inflating such a balloon before a meal caused the animals to reduce their food intake by 60 percent.
The researchers said this type of intervention could provide an alternative for people who don’t want to resort to more invasive treatments, such as gastric bypass surgery, or for those who don’t respond well to weight-loss medications.
“The basic concept is that you could create a dynamic air balloon that would be inflated right before a meal, and then the person would not feel hungry. Then, between meals, that balloon would deflate” (Giovanni Traverso, assistant professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and senior study author Neil Zixun Jia, who received his PhD from MIT in 2023 and is the paper’s lead author).
Inflatable balloon
Gastric balloons filled with saline are now approved for use in the United States. These balloons stimulate a feeling of fullness in the stomach, and studies have shown that they work well, but the benefits are often temporary.
“Gastric balloons really work initially. Traditionally, it has been observed that the use of a balloon is accompanied by weight loss. But then, weight gain usually resumes on the same trajectory,” Traverso says. “We thought that if we had a system that mimicked satiety during the transition period, that is, the period before eating, it might promote weight loss.
To achieve a longer-lasting effect in patients, the researchers decided to develop a device that could expand and contract at will. They created two prototypes: one is a traditional air balloon that inflates and deflates, and the other is a mechanical device with four levers that expand outward, pushing out an elastic polymer shell that exerts pressure on the stomach walls.
In animal testing, the researchers found that a device with a mechanical arm could effectively expand to fill the stomach, but they ultimately opted for the balloon version.
“We felt that the balloon would distribute the force better, and in the end, having the pressure exerted by the balloon would be safer in the long run,” Traverso says.
The researchers’ new balloon is similar to a traditional gastric balloon, but it is inserted into the stomach through an incision in the abdominal wall. The balloon is connected to an external control device that can be attached to the skin and contains a pump that inflates and deflates the balloon as needed. Installing this device would be similar to the procedure of inserting a feeding probe into a patient’s stomach, which is usually inserted into people who are unable to eat and drink. We know that such probes can stay in the body for years. This gives confidence in the long-term compatibility of the new system with the balloon.
Reducing food intake
In animal tests, researchers found that inflating a balloon before eating resulted in a 60 percent reduction in the amount of food consumed.
If the new gastric balloon is approved for use in humans, it could provide an alternative to existing obesity treatments such as gastric bypass surgery, “gastric suturing” (a surgical procedure in which the volume of the stomach is reduced), and the use of medications.
A gastric balloon may be a good option for patients who are contraindicated for surgery or who do not respond well to weight loss medications.
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