Stomach Balloon For Weight Loss

Terrifyingly simple.

This is the Obalon system. It is a pill that has a balloon inside. Obalon is a weight-loss device, marketed as an alternative to bariatric surgery, that claims to help people eat less and "push back from the table sooner."

Obalon begins to work when you swallow Obalon and it lands in your stomach. Obalon remains temporarily attached to a thin tube, through which doctors can inflate it. They then remove the thin tube, and the balloon stays in your stomach for up to three months, bobbing around like buoy in gastric waters. You can take up to three at a time, the manufacturers say. The idea is that balloons partly fill your stomach to make you feel full, so you eat less. They are too big and buoyant to pass beyond the stomach. After twelve weeks, a doctor deflates the balloons and pulls them back out through your mouth.

  

 
 
 
 
 
 

“This balloon will act to educate [people] about portion size and retrain their brain and their mindset a little,” Dr. Sally Norton, a U.K. bariatric surgeon, told CBS News.

The Obalon balloon pill is approved for investigational use only in the U.S. However, it is approved in the E.U. and is available in Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Spain. What better way to see Europe than with expensive stomach balloons?

Would you do it -- would you swallow a belly balloon for twelve weeks for weight loss and have it removed?

I suppose I'd have to see the size of the "pill" first.  I kid you not.   (Hey -- I had my stomach and intestines realigned, I cannot judge one who chooses something LESS invasive.)

The Atlantic - http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/01/this-weight-loss-pill-turns-into-a-balloon-to-fill-your-stomach/283399/