NHS weight loss therapy ‘shuts off hunger hormone’

THE NHS is set to trial a 40-minute, £1,500 procedure that could ‘turn off the hunger hormone’ and help obese people shed weight.

The radical alternative to current operations switches off the ghrelin hormone by reducing the supply of blood to the stomach.

The process, which can be performed under local anaesthetic and takes just 40 minutes, could cut the desire to over-eat and reduce weight, doctors say.

Ahmed R. Ahmed, a bariatric surgeon at St Mary’s Hospital in London, is leading the trial and says the procedure would cost a quarter of the price of normal fat-loss surgery.

Only 6,000 bariatric operations such as gastric bands and bypasses are performed each year due to expense and logistics, leading to long waiting lists. Patients could be out of hospital within two hours after the new procedure, Mr Ahmed told The Mail on Sunday.

It involves making a small cut in the groin or wrist and passing a hollow wire up through blood vessels.

Microscopic beads are then deposited in an artery which serves the upper stomach, blocking it.

Limiting blood supply to this area of the body, also known as the fundus, is known to reduce the production of ghrelin.

Studies have found obese patients shed on average nearly 10 per cent of their weight following the procedure – while some lose much more. Such weight loss could significantly improve health, cutting the risk of cardiovascular disease and reversing Type 2 diabetes.

Mr Ahmed said ‘gold standard’ proof is required before the treatment can be made widely available, as studies so far have been relatively small scale.

‘We really need to know it’s the intervention itself having the effect, and it’s not just a placebo effect,’ he said. The trial, which has received £1.2million from the NHS’s National Institute for Health Research, will involve 76 volunteers who are extremely or morbidly obese.

Half will have the full procedure, while others will receive a saline solution placebo. The participants will be followed for a year.

No patients have yet been given the treatment in Britain, but around 25 have had it in the US.

One participant described her experience with the procedure as ‘being unchained from food’.

‘Unchained from food’