William Atkins
Tuesday, 16 September 2008 22:31
Science -
Health
Page 2 of 3
The researchers then took the tube into the gastric arteries that supply blood to the stomach.
Once the tube was in place, the researchers injected sodium morrhuate—a chemical that destroys blood vessels, oftentimes in a procedure to eliminate primary varicose veins—into the left gastric arteries of five pigs.
A nontoxic saline solution was injected into the other five pigs—so they would act as a control group.
Over the next month, the researchers collected blood samples from the ten pigs in order to analyze the ghrelin levels in the GACE-injected pigs versus the saline-injected pigs.
They found that the GACE pigs had up to 60% lower levels of ghrelin than the baseline levels taken before the surgery.
Dr. Arepally stated,
"With gastric artery chemical embolization, called GACE, there's no major surgery. In our study in pigs, this procedure produced an effect similar to bariatric surgery by suppressing ghrelin levels and subsequently lowering appetite.” [HealthDay News: “
Researchers Suppress 'Hunger Hormone'”]
Page three describes bariatric surgery, or weight loss surgery. Dr. Arapally also comments on the importance of his new procedure versus bariatric surgery.
