Ingestible Obesity Treatment Device Creates Illusion of Fullness  

Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed an ingestible capsule that vibrates within the stomach to create a sense of fullness, potentially helping treat obesity.

Obesity is a common and severe disease in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity prevalence was 41.9 percent between 2017 and March 2020. Obesity can result in various chronic conditions, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer.

In a study published in Science Advances, the MIT engineers noted that obesity therapies are typically invasive, involving surgery or endoscopic interventions, and require high patient adherence. Other minimally invasive options, like GLP-1 agonists, can support weight loss but are unaffordable for many people, a news release noted.

Thus, the MIT team designed the Vibrating Ingestible BioElectronic Stimulator (VIBES) pill, an ingestible device that vibrates to activate stretch receptors that sense when the stomach is distended.

Cells called gastric mechanoreceptors sense when a stomach stretches and becomes distended, sending signals to the brain via the vagus nerve. The brain responds by stimulating the production of insulin and hormones like C-peptide, Pyy, and GLP-1, which help with food digestion, making people feel satiated. Simultaneously, levels of a hunger-promoting hormone, ghrelin, decrease.

Led by Shriya Srinivasan, PhD, a former MIT graduate student and postdoc who is now an assistant professor of bioengineering at Harvard University, and Giovanni Traverso, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, a research team created the VIBES pill to artificially stretch the gastric mechanoreceptors through vibration.

The pill includes a small silver oxide battery and a gelatinous membrane that dissolves in acidic gastric fluids. This completes the electronic circuit that activates the vibrating motor.

The research team tested the VIBES pill across 108 meals among swine. They found that ingestion of the pill consistently led to diminished food intake and minimized the weight gain rate among the swine as compared to swine not treated with the pill.

“The behavioral change is profound, and that’s using the endogenous system rather than any exogenous therapeutic,” Traverso said in a press release. “We have the potential to overcome some of the challenges and costs associated with delivery of biologic drugs by modulating the enteric nervous system.”

Further, Srinivasan stated that the ingestible device could be manufactured cheaply, making it more accessible than other obesity treatments.

“At scale, our device could be manufactured at a pretty cost-effective price point,” she said in the news release. “I’d love to see how this would transform care and therapy for people in global health settings who may not have access to some of the more sophisticated or expensive options that are available today.”

The National Institutes of Health, Novo Nordisk, the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, a Schmidt Science Fellowship, and the National Science Foundation funded the research.

This is the latest ingestible device developed to enhance healthcare delivery.

Last November, Massachusetts and West Virginia researchers announced they had created a wireless ingestible device enabling remote monitoring of vital signs. The Vitals Monitoring Pill (VM Pill) is a capsule-size device that can accurately collect and report vital signs, including respiratory and heart rates.

The pill leverages a custom configuration of integrated circuits and electronic sensors, including an accelerometer, to measure small ballistic movements generated in the gastrointestinal tract each time the heart beats or breathing occurs. A human trial showed it could capture respiratory rhythms within the expected range of 9 to 25 breaths per minute and cardiac signals within the scope of 40 to 95 beats per minute.

The trial further revealed that the pill could identify moments when subjects stopped breathing, either during sleep apnea or because they were intentionally holding their breath.