ReShape Medical is a device manufacturing company in Southern California. ReShape claims it is “pioneering the next-generation weight loss solution” to be used as an aid in the treatment of obese or overweight patients who aren’t interested in or qualified for bariatric surgery. The alternative here is balloons. That’s right. Balloons.
ReShape has designed a dual-balloon device that gets temporarily inserted into your stomach. It reduces your stomach’s capacity to take in food by taking up existing space. You can’t eat as much as you were because there is less room for food. Simple, right? These weight loss balloons are designed to remain in your stomach for a period of six months and then are removed.
ReShape is currently conducting a U.S. Investigational Device Exemption clinical study on the balloons to acquire evidence and documentation of their efficacy, safety, and overall performance. The first patient participating in the study being done at the N.E.W. Program in Newport Beach, California, is probably not as big a person as you might think. He is a 31-year old man who stands 6’2 and weighed 263 pounds. He received the dual-balloon device in his stomach because he is said to have exhausted himself with various diets that didn’t help him lose weight, and he didn’t qualify for bariatric surgery.
Will balloons be the next high rising weight loss aid? Or is it the latest round of hot air about the hot, new solution? This study is only the first step in getting the device off the ground. It will be interesting to learn the results. But it does make for some creative weight loss pictures in your mind, doesn’t it? Could your personal plan include balloons in your stomach?
Thomas Baldrick
http://www.weightlosspictures.org
