Mar 31, 2014 – Obesity Intervention

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:06 — 1.0MB)

Subscribe: RSS

ANCHOR LEAD: CAN INTERVENTIONAL RADIOLOGISTS HELP STEM THE OBESITY EPIDEMIC? ELIZABETH TRACEY REPORTS

Interventional radiologists use cutting edge imaging to help them reach many areas inside the body to do procedures. One such procedure that has proven very promising in an animal model of obesity has been developed by Clifford Weiss and colleagues at Johns Hopkins.

WEISS: Essentially without incisions, without surgery we place small tubes or catheters into arteries, and then using wires and other smaller tubes can actually track almost anywhere in the body. Typically when we embolize things, embolize means to drop the blood flow or stop the blood flow to a particular area, we’re doing so either to treat cancer or to stop bleeding. In this particular therapy the goal is to create a partial ischemia, so a partial decrease in blood flow, to a very particular area of the stomach called the fundus. :29

Weiss’ research shows that when blood flow is reduced to the fundus of the stomach weight loss occurs. Plans to try the technique in people are underway. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.