Stanford recruiting people for new obesity treatment study

Whitney Everett/Stanford recruiting people for new obesity treatment study/April 25/9:14am/post 14

Stanford is starting a new clinical research study on obesity that would give patients an alternative to surgical procedures. The study, called EMPOWER, will evaluate safety of an experimental method, called VBLOC therapy, that periodically stops the body’s neural messages of hunger and fullness from going to your brain. Applicants must be between ages eighteen and sixty five, with a body mass index between thirty five and forty five. They National Institutes of Health found that about sixty six percent of American adults are overweight and nearly one third are obese. About twelve million Americans qualify for this study. After a trial of VBLOC study conducted outside of the US, showed nine participants had excess weight loss of 29.5 percent after nine months, the Food and Drug Administration approved the study.

So the question is do you think this is something that needs to be brought to the table in helping fix the obesity problem in the United States? I believe that this is something that may help as in the examples of the participants that have done this procedure. But for me I found it a little dangerous and wonder if it is really ok for someone to do something like this to their body. It all comes down to the fact that a healthy diet and daily exercise will always be the key to staying healthy and at a weight where you feel good about yourself and is healthy for you.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/sanmateocountytimes/localnews/ci_9044246