Could nerve-snipping spur weight loss?

KC wrote:
Here's an article about a medically assisted weight loss technique. I
keep up with weight loss topics. I thought others here on this group
might be interested in weight loss topics.

KC

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070702/...etLX bsDVJRIF

An old ulcer operation is getting new attention as a possible
alternative obesity surgery: a quick snip of a nerve that helps
control hunger.

It's far from clear if cutting the vagus nerve really helps - initial
pilot studies in a few dozen patients have just begun. Skeptics
abound, and even proponents say it wouldn't lead to nearly as much
weight loss as more traumatic operations that shrink the stomach and
reroute intestines.

It's part of a hunt for middle-ground options for people scared of
today's surgery, or those not quite fat enough to qualify for it.

"By no means do I think this is a panacea," cautions Dr. Robert Lustig
of the University of California, San Francisco, who is studying the
method along with University of Rochester surgeons.

"But I think this will be a rational alternative for a cadre of
patients that are sort of in the middle there. With as much obesity as
we have in this country, that's a big middle."

More than 177,000 people underwent obesity surgery last year,
according to the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.
The most popular method is gastric bypass, stapling the stomach to
create a tiny pouch. Options include placing an adjustable band around
the stomach, or cutting off the stomach's side and rerouting the
intestines.

Surgery can produce life-altering weight loss, if recipients adhere to
diet and exercise advice, but each method comes with varying degrees
of pain and risk, including a rare chance of death. So doctors are
searching for alternatives.

Enter the vagus nerve, which snakes from the brain to the abdomen,
with fibers reaching into multiple organs with different effects.
Among them: The nerve spurs gastric acid production, and in the 1970s,
surgery to cut where it attaches to the front and back of the stomach
brought ulcer sufferers great relief - after they recovered from open-
abdominal surgery. Once better acid-reducing medications came along,
this arduous operation was abandoned.

Yet surgeons at the time noticed, and subsequent animal studies
confirmed, that these vagotomies could trigger weight loss. In
addition to a less acidic stomach's slower digestion, the vagus helps
control appetite-stimulating brain hormones and signals our bodies to
store more fat, Lustig explains.

Since doctors today can snip the nerve far less invasively, through
just five pencil-sized cuts in the abdomen, it was time to test in the
obese.

Thirty patients had a vagus snip at UCSF or the University of
Rochester. The study isn't complete. But of the 11 who are a year past
surgery, all but one are shedding pounds, losing an average of 18
percent of excess weight so far, Lustig and Rochester's Dr. Thad Boss
reported at last month's bariatric society meeting.

They suffered no serious side effects, and went home hours later with
little pain.

"Every patient who had the vagus nerve cut says they're not hungry,"
adds Lustig - although the one who didn't respond got hungry again six
weeks after surgery, perhaps because the nerve healed.

That's less than half the weight loss of standard surgeries, warns Dr.
Neil Hutcher of Bon Secour St. Mary's Hospital in Richmond, Va., and a
past president of the bariatric society.

"I have my doubts that vagotomy alone is going to be a significant
weapon," says Hutcher, who often cuts the nerve during standard
gastric bypasses for a different reason - to help those patients avoid
the side effect of heartburn-causing acid buildup.

But, when Greensboro, N.C., surgeons added a vagotomy to 25 patients
getting bands on their stomachs, the nerve-snip seemed to make that
usually more modest operation about as effective as a gastric bypass -
with 43 percent loss of excess weight at six months, and counting.

For a more rigorous study, Rochester's Boss is about to recruit 60
more patients headed for band surgery, giving half a vagotomy as well.

The pilot studies were funded by a startup medical device company
called EndoVx Inc. that hopes one day to further simplify vagotomies,
cutting the nerve by beaming high-intensity ultrasound waves down the
throat.

Other doctors are testing if implants that treat epilepsy by
stimulating the vagus nerve also might trigger weight loss, with mixed
results so far.

For now, Boss stresses that vagus nerve-snipping remains highly
experimental. He and Lustig will track their 30 patients for 18 months
to check if ultimate weight loss is enough to warrant further study,
and who responds best.

The goal is to help people like Garth Michaels of Walnut Creek,
Calif., who twice backed out of standard obesity surgery, fearful of
side effects and a long recovery. Thirteen months after he volunteered
for the vagotomy experiment, he has dropped 66 pounds, to 246.

That's a much more gradual loss than with regular surgery, but
Michaels says having his hunger curbed help him finally learn to
exercise. He spends a half-hour on an exercise bike most days. And he
learned to avoid former diet saboteurs - french fries, sweets - that
caused foul burping after his vagotomy, in favor of fruits and
vegetables.

"I will lose more, there's no doubt about it," says Michaels, 56,
whose goal is 175 pounds. "It has given me such hope."

Anything that harms you will cause loss of hunger. For example,
cutting out the tongue will also cause loss of hunger.

This would be bad. Loss of hunger is bad.

"Hunger is good." -- Holy Spirit

Amen.

It is the world's great lie that "hunger is bad" that compels people
to overeat.

Those who overcome this lie, stop overeating.

Here's how to overcome this terrible lie:

http://HeartMDPhD.com/press.asp

May GOD bless you in HIS mighty way making you healthier (hungrier)
than ever.

Prayerfully in Jesus' awesome love,

Andrew
--
Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD
Cardiologist

"Andrew B. Chung, MD/PhD" wrote in
oups.com:

Sock Notice: heartdoc(15) active, 11,12,13,14, and "andrew" on standby.

KC wrote:
good stuff snip


bad stuff snip

http://HeawtMDPhD.com/pwess.asp
SCAM SITE
SPAM
SPAM
SPAM

May GOD bwess you in HIS mighty way making you heawthiew (hungwiew)
than evew.

Pwayewfuwwy in Jesus' awesome wove,

Andwew
--
Andwew B. Chung, MD/PhD/NJ/WOKA**
Ex-Cawdiowogist


Andy is Evil

**NJ--Nut Job,WOKA--Winner Of K00K Awards