Freezing a specific nerve can help patients lose weight

Freezing the posterior vagal trunk, the nerve that sends hunger-related signals to the brain, could help patients with mild-to-moderate obesity lose weight, according to research presented at the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR) annual meeting in Los Angeles.

An interventional radiologist performs the procedure by inserting a needle through the patient’s back using live images from a CT scan. Argon gas is used to freeze the nerve, limiting its ability to communicate with the brain.

“We developed this treatment for patients with mild-to-moderate obesity to reduce the attrition that is common with weight-loss efforts,” lead author David Prologo, MD, with the Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, said in a prepared statement. “We are trying to help people succeed with their own attempts to lose weight.”

For the study, Prologo and colleagues performed this new technique on 10 subjects with a BMI between 30 and 37. All subjects said their appetite had been reduced and they reported an average loss of 3.6 percent of their initial BMI.

“Medical literature shows the vast majority of weight-loss programs fail, especially when people attempt to reduce their food intake,” Prologo said in the statement. “When our stomachs are empty, the body senses this and switches to food-seeking survival mode. We’re not trying to eliminate this biological response, only reduce the strength of this signal to the brain to provide a new, sustainable solution to the difficult problem of treating mild obesity.”

Plans are now being made for a larger follow-up study to learn more about this technique.