Obesity Pill Passes First Human Trial

http://www.xconomy.com/boston/2010/04/22/obesity-capsule-from-gelesis-made-to-swell-up-in-the-stomach-passes-first-human-trial/

by cwan • 16 years ago

14 15 16 years ago

xconomy.com

ableal2• 16 years ago

> Obesity Pill Passes First Human Trial

Comes out alright.

(Go ahead, shoot me - but first flag this also.)

carbocation• 16 years ago

I'm not going to flag this story, because I find this pill to be a clever hack. It's basically an end-run around gastric bypass, if they can get its properties right. It takes up stomach volume, which is a really useful way to promote satiety thanks to the presence of stretch receptors there. If it works, it could seriously reduce the number of dangerous procedures for obesity treatment and replace them with a simple volume-filling pill. The battle of willpower not to eat instead becomes the battle of willpower to remember to "volume up" before eating so you feel full faster. This would be amazing for patients. I'm not convinced this will work as planned, but am excited that people are coming up with clever, relatively low-risk approaches like this. Eventually one might just work.

swombat2• 16 years ago

Why do you feel this story should be flagged? It's technology-related, involves a (biotech) start-up, and could impact a significant percentage of HN readers' personal lives. Seems like the ideal HN story...

ableal2• 16 years ago

Looks like one of those general interest stories you can find in any newspaper, put out by PR to prop up the company. No technical details, secret sauce, seems similar to just filling up with gelatin, except in expensive pills. Not really 'hard biotech', not worth the attention, in short.

P.S. Yesterday, for instance, I voted up that 'paid comments' site link, not because I think it's a good idea, but because it might generate some interesting comments. I don't think it's the case with this, or economics/etc discussions which quickly degenerate into pointless squabbling. Been around that block with Usenet, and the experience hasn't improved - nowadays there's not even killfiles, and the reading is slower. Not looking good.

yanowitz• 16 years ago

I wonder if this really works long term, how people's leptin resistance confounds its efficacy, etc.

I still remained shocked at how effective carb restriction is, assuming you swap in lots of protein and fat from non-processsed food sources. The hassle is that it takes more time to construct meals, etc., but if you eat less than 40g of carbs a day, you can eat to satiety and lose weight with relative ease (at least, I did, as did many other people I know, so sample size of n=~8, obviously, not conclusive).

msluyter• 16 years ago

Add +1 to your sample size. I cut out all grains at the beginning of this year and effortlessly lost about 30 lbs.

abrown28• 16 years ago

I weighed 320 pounds when I cut out carbs. I lost approximately 5 pounds a week until I got down to 275 at which point I couldn't stand it any more and pigged out on donuts.

JeremyStein2• 16 years ago

What happens if you swallow a dozen of these?

swombat2• 16 years ago

The same thing that happens when you eat an overly large volume of something else, I would imagine: you throw up.

hugh3• 16 years ago

If the pill genuinely expands 100-fold in your stomach then I can see it being worse than throwing up. Either it might suck all the fluid out of your stomach, in which case you won't be able to throw up, or it might fill your stomach so rapidly that you can't bring them all up in time.

Of course I'm sure that the consequences of overdose are something the researchers have thought about carefully and probably tested on animals by now.

allenp• 16 years ago

The pill works by expanding to make you feel full (100-to-1 ratio claimed).

Here is a link to a 4min animation and a 1 minute live video (pill in glass of water):

http://www.gelesis.com/content/technology/

ja27• 16 years ago

April Fools Day will never be the same again.

JeremyStein2• 16 years ago

Thanks for the link to the video. I had imagined it acting like expanding polyurethane foam. I see it looks more like mush, which doesn't seem as dangerous.

stavrianos• 16 years ago

Artificial roughage. Nice.

Obesity Pill Passes First Human Trial

Related Stories