Excess Weight Is Not The Verdict

Excess Weight Is Not The Verdict.
For the senior time, researchers have shown that implanting electrodes in the brain's "feeding center" can be safely done - in a tender to lay open a new treatment option for severely obese people who fail to shed pounds even after weight-loss surgery. In a beginning study with three patients, researchers in June 2013 found that they could safely use the therapy, known as acute brain stimulation (DBS). Over almost three years, none of the patients had any important side effects, and two even lost some weight - but it was temporary. "The sooner thing we needed to do was to see if this is safe," said lead researcher Dr Donald Whiting, depravity chairman of neurosurgery at Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh.

And "We're at the point now where it looks groove on it is". The study, reported in the Journal of Neurosurgery and at a meeting this week of the International Neuromodulation Society in Berlin, Germany, was not meant to examine effectiveness. So the big remaining subject is, can deep brain stimulation actually promote lasting weight loss?

"Nobody should get the end that this has been shown to be effective. This is not something you can go ask your doctor about". Right now, deep wit stimulation is sometimes used for tough-to-treat cases of Parkinson's disease, a movement disorder that causes tremors, howling muscles, and balance and coordination problems. A surgeon implants electrodes into delineated movement-related areas of the brain, then attaches those electrodes to a neurostimulator placed under the skin near the collarbone.

The neurostimulator continually sends infinitesimal electrical pulses to the brain, which in turn interferes with the perverse activity that causes tremors and other symptoms. What does that have to do with obesity? In theory deep planner stimulation might be able to "override" brain signaling involved in eating, metabolism or feelings of fullness.

Research in animals has shown that electrical stimulation of a thorough area of the brain - the lateral hypothalamic area - can drive weight loss even if calorie intake stays the same. The new consider marks the first time that deep brain stimulation has been tried in that brain region. And it's an high-level first step to show that not only could these three severely obese people get through the surgery, but they also seemed to have no not joking effects from the brain stimulation, said Dr Casey Halpern, a neurosurgeon at the University of Pennsylvania who was not interested in the research.

And "That shows us this is a therapy that should be studied further in a larger trial," said Halpern, who has done subhuman research exploring the idea of using deep brain stimulation for obesity. "Obesity is a larger problem and current therapies, even gastric bypass surgery, don't always work. There is a medical necessary for new therapies".

The three patients in Whiting's study were examples of that medical need. All were sternly obese and had failed to shed weight after gastric bypass surgery - the progress last-ditch treatment option. During the study period, the patients did have some insolence effects from deep brain stimulation - nausea, anxiety and feeling "too lubricous or flushed" - but they were short-lived, the researchers said.

And there was some evidence that the brain stimulation was having effects. In lab tests, Whiting's duo found that the deep brain stimulation seemed to motivate short-lived spikes in resting metabolism. Then, after the deep brain stimulation was programmed to the settings that seemed to promote metabolism, two patients shed some pounds - 12 percent to 16 percent of what they weighed before the DBS settings were "optimized".

And "There was some millstone loss, but it was transient". Now a guide question is, what is the right setting for the deep brain stimulation to spur on lasting weight loss? Whiting said his team is continuing to follow these three patients to turn to figure that out - and to keep monitoring safety. Although deep brain stimulation is considered a habitually safe therapy for the right patients, it is a major undertaking that requires two surgeries - one to indoctrinate electrodes in the brain and another to place the neurostimulator.

The potential risks include infection, a blood clot or bleeding in the brain, or an allergic retaliation to the DBS parts. If astute brain stimulation ever does become an option for managing severe obesity he would expect it only to be used when all else fails. "This would to be sure be a last resort.

So "At first, it would absolutely be a last-ditch option," neurosurgeon Halpern said. But it's also thinkable that deep brain stimulation could become an add-on therapy, hand-me-down after gastric bypass for some patients whose weight does not fall - or even an alternative in certain cases where route surgery is too risky. Medtronic provided the deep brain stimulation hardware for the study and funded the work pharmacy. One of Whiting's co-researchers is employed by the company.