School of Weight Loss

Many people struggle with their weight and eventually turn to gastric bypass as a solution. Usually this is someone who has a series of life threatening co-morbidities like sleep apnea, high blood pressure, heart disease or asthma that have happened because of their obesity.

Researchers at John Hopkins University are testing out a way to suppress the hunger hormone that may be helpful in dealing with some obesity issues. According to their study, they have found that by suppressing the hunger hormone ghrelin they can effectively create a suppression of appetite in the individual.

This research has only been done in pigs for now, but if they can translate it to humans they think it could be a less invasive alternative to gastric bypass.  This new process called gastric artery chemical embolization or GACE actually chemically vaporizes a blood vessel that goes to the top of the stomach. By doing this it cannot create the hormone and the appetite suppresses. Since this is part of what gastric bypass does they are hopeful that this can be done in humans.

The research was conducted over a four week period with 10 healthy pigs. They have a similar anatomy to humans so they were chosen as the best alternative.

This does not seem to be a healthy alternative for gastric bypass patients when we look closer. Obesity is complicated and it is difficult for many people. Gastric bypass is a last resort alternative after an individual has tried many different forms of weight loss.

Being overweight in this case does not necessarily have to do with appetite. Instead, it is an imbalance in their body that the gastric bypass is used to change. There is also the psychological factor of weight loss — the mind tells the body when it is hungry, in a healthy individual; but does not necessarily tell an obese person when they are hungry or when they are full.

Generally, gastric bypass to help an individual change their metabolism to one where weight loss, is now possible. The John Hopkins research seems to imply that the individual who has an eating problem that can be helped by suppression appetite. If that were the only issue patients would have had some other form of weight loss work.

Although gastric bypass may suppress appetite at some point it is the not main focus for this surgery. It seems that the researchers at John Hopkins should study gastric bypass surgery more directly so they understand the ramifications of what they are researching. It did not seem that they were very knowledgeable about bypass surgery since they isolated it to only appetite suppress.

In some ways it seems like they are creating another hurdle for an obese person to have to jump over, and not getting specifically to the real problem.

In order for an individual to have healthy weight loss after bypass surgery, they have to retrain their brain in terms of the amount of food they eat and how often they eat. This is something that many people do not know going into the surgery.

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