MIT engineers have developed a gastric balloon that can be expanded before a meal to prevent overeating and then deflated when no longer needed.

The idea is for the gastric balloon device to be implanted into the stomach through an incision in the abdominal wall. It connects to an external controller. [Image courtesy of MIT]

Studies on animals showed that inflating the balloon before a meal reduced food intake by 60%, according to an MIT news release. The researchers’ paper appeared today in the journal Device.

“The basic concept is we can have this balloon that is dynamic, so it would be inflated right before a meal and then you wouldn’t feel hungry. Then it would be deflated in between meals,” says Giovanni Traverso, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, a gastroenterologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and the senior author of the study. (The paper’s lead author is Neil Zixun Jia, who received a PhD from MIT in 2023.)

Gastric balloons filled with saline are presently used in the United States, but Traverso says their benefits can be temporary.

“Gastric balloons do work initially. Historically, what has been seen is that the balloon is associated with weight loss. But then in general, the weight gain resumes the same trajectory,” Traverso said. “What we reasoned was perhaps if we had a system that simulates that fullness in a transient way, meaning right before a meal, that could be a way of inducing weight loss.”

According to MIT, the researchers came up with two different prototypes:

• A traditional balloon that inflates and deflates;
• And a mechanical device with four arms that expand outward to push an elastic polymer shell that presses on the wall of the stomach

After conducting tests with animals, the MIT team settled on the ballon.

“Our sense was that the balloon probably distributed the force better, and down the line, if you have balloon that is applying the pressure, that is probably a safer approach in the long run,” Traverso said.

The balloon device is implanted into the stomach through an incision in the abdominal wall. The balloon connects to an external controller that can be attached to the skin. The controller contains a pump that inflates and deflates the balloon. According to MIT, device insertion in a person would be similar to placing a feeding tube into a patient’s stomach.

Said Traverso: “If people, for example, are unable to swallow, they receive food through a tube like this. We know that we can keep tubes in for years, so there is already precedent for other systems that can stay in the body for a very long time. That gives us some confidence in the longer-term compatibility of this system.”

Article source：Medical Design & Outsourcing