Dean Kamen Invents Stomach Pump For Dieters

You may soon have another option to lose weight other than dieting and exercise thanks to Dean Kamen. The inventor has designed a pump that can suck the cheeseburgers out of your stomach and replace it with water. From the article: "The pump was invented by Dean Kamen, the same man who brought you the Segway, and perhaps more fittingly, a breakthrough dialysis machine. This pump works by routing a tube directly into the user's stomach and then sucking out some of the gooey, masticated goodness. The user then squeezes a little plastic bag to replace that volume of stomach-stew with water. Sounds great, right? There are some catches though. It hasn't been approved by the FDA yet, and some of the users in the tests had problems with certain foods like 'cauliflower, broccoli, Chinese food, stir fry, snow peas, pretzels, chips, and steak.' Oh, also there's a tube going into your stomach that you use to pump unpuked vomit into the toilet. Participants in trial studies did manage to lose about half of their excess weight this way, around 45 pounds on average, so apparently it works."

Comments

Isn't this just bulimia?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or at least a marketable, respectable form of bulimia.

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Yes, it is. At least, it's bulimia. I don't see anything respectable at all about surgically altering yourself so you can gorge and still lose weight, and I guess time will tell if it's marketable (although I doubt it'll be even as successful as lap band surgery), but yeah, it's definitely mechanical barfing.

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

The tube should ameliorate some of the dangerous effects of repeated exposure to gastric acids by the sensitive tissues and teeth of the mouth and throat, so there is that...

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[jamesh]

Yes, it is. At least, it's bulimia. I don't see anything respectable at all about surgically altering yourself so you can gorge and still lose weight, and I guess time will tell if it's marketable (although I doubt it'll be even as successful as lap band surgery), but yeah, it's definitely mechanical barfing.

Depends on the size of the target market. How many people are there in the US who love eating but don't want to be fat? Probably not many I guess.

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[AuMatar]

Wrong question. How many people love eating, don't want to be fat, and think that this could possibly be a good or healthy idea? And want to deal with the disposal and cleanup of the pumped material? I love eating and it would be great to lose 100 pounds, but I know that this isn't safe and is actually counter-productive.

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know about you, but I deal with disposal of some pretty nasty material from my body at least once a day already...

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[Dahamma]

I assume you have never been intubated (even by a real doctor) before? They do it for most surgeries (to the trachea, not stomach) and most people have a minor sore throat afterwards. Do that yourself (all the way down to your stomach, even worse) every day and you will mess up your esophagus, larynx, of some other structure in your throat a lot faster than gastric acids would.

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[jklovanc]

You seem to think that the plastic bag is inside the stomach. Not true. The water is just injected into the stomach through the tube that was being used to pump the juices out. It probably also acts as a cleaning agent so the tube does not become clogged.

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[ColdWetDog]

the problem is it takes will power out of the equation

That's OK, most people are bad at math.

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[davester666]

You really should have that head wound looked at by a doctor...

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[AmiMoJo]

Weight loss surgery is not about wanting to lose weight with no effort or eat as much as you like. That is a common misconception that is hard to explain to people who don't struggle to control their weight.

Willpower is not enough for a lot of people. Personally I suffer from both arthritis and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I am just about managing to keep my current weight, but could stand to loose 20kg or more. It isn't a case of being lazy, or weak, or stuffing my face with McShit all day. I'm way off the point where I would qualify for surgery but I can completely understand why it is necessary for some people.

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[jamesh]

How many people are there in the US who love eating but don't want to be fat? Probably not many I guess.

Not many? More like just about everyone.

Sarcasm is implied unless indicated otherwise.

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[jamesh]

This is limited intake alone.

The research i've read says that you grow additional fat cells when your intake exceeds your expenditure, and your fat cells empty when your expenditure exceeds your intake. Empty fat cells scream at your brain to eat to fill them up again, making it easy to lose a bit of weight but difficult to keep it off. The article I read wasn't clear on how long empty fat cells stay empty before they are eliminated, but i don't think it was particularly fast.

I'm not sure if the article (can't find it anymore) was quackery or actually backed by proper research but it seemed a reasonable explanation for why surgery (cutting out fat from the body) becomes the only option for really obese people. Obviously if they had the self control to lose weight they probably wouldn't be in this situation in the first place.

Stomach stapling would reduce the ability to eat but leave the person in the hell of wanting to eat without being able to. This new invention might be a better solution, although I think that the act of eating primes the body for the nutrients about to be delivered, and messing with that (eg removing the foot before it hits the intestines) might not be a particularly good long term solution...

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[pev]

People go in cycles of bulimia and anorexia

Not true. I've had bulimia for many years and not told anyone about it. I'm overweight by about 15Kg and tubby but not your typical fatty. I've certainly never had anorexia or even been close.

Yes I know it's ironic, "Hi internet." The geek psyche is weird isn't it? It seems less concerning to me to disclose publicly what I guess is a fucked medical problem in a public forum than it is to let someone make an incorrect comment on slashdot. I think XKCD nailed it with : http://xkcd.com/386/

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[dargaud]

While Kamen is at it, he should invent a collar that measures how much food goes though your throat and chokes you after a certain amount. We already have electric collars to keep dogs from wandering off a property, so why not an electric collar to keep the obese from ruining social security ?

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

Personally, I suffer from eating too much food and not wanting to move very much.

Re:Isn't this just bulimia?

[fractoid]

No, the body doesn't NEED calories. It WANTS them because we've evolved to fatten up when food is plentiful so that we don't starve when food is scarce. The nasty side effect is that when food is always plentiful, and we don't have the discipline to consciously manage our energy intake to sustain a healthy weight, then we blimp up.
Agreed, though, that people are still going to feel hungry after eating an entire McDonalds and then barfing it up again.

Name:

[Anonymous Coward]

BULI - O-MATIC

Did You Think, Maybe...

[Greyfox]

Just not eat all those cheeseburgers in the first place? Hah! Crazy talk, I know!

Re:Did You Think, Maybe...

[SternisheFan]

When you are in 'starvation mode', your body saves every calorie it gets so that it can be burned later. This is an evolutionay trait from when humans went for long periods between meals. You might not get to chase down and successfully kill another deer for months.

When your body has consistent meals for about thirty days or so, your body 'learns' that it is now 'okay' to begin burning extra calories again.

Re:Did You Think, Maybe...

[NIK282000]

There are many reasons for people to be fat but the ONLY mechanism is cramming your face with calories. Regardless of glands, mental health or family history you body cant just pull mass out of fat air, it needs to be fed. An intelligent diet and exercise are the cheapest and best solution to America's weight problem. Unless the person is not in charge of their own diet then there is no one to blame for their 300lb ass but themselves.

Re:Did You Think, Maybe...

[RedK]

Oh please, the body is not some kind of magic entity that can ignore the laws of physics. Your body needs energy to function and the calories you consume are that energy. Your metabolism can slow down to some extent, but it's not as drastic as you say. "Starvation mode" is simply what the people who binge in secret tell you. Adjust your caloric intake to under or just at your base metabolism and you will lose weight, your body won't magically start running on hopes and dreams while it stores calories.

The opposite is true, your body doesn't "burn the extra calories" either, it stores them. That's how you gain weight. The plain fact is, the only way to lose weight is to consume less calories than you burn. No magic hocus pocus, no "starvation mode", no nothing. The more you consume, the more you need to burn. And aside from a few big name athletes, exercise will burn less than your base metabolism anyhow (my base metabolism is at about 1700-1750 calories/day last time I had it measured).

revolutionary!

[terec]

This is going to revolutionize nutrition and eating, just like the Ginger/Segway has revolutionized transportation in our cities.

Re:revolutionary!

[Anonymous Coward]

How very shallow. How old are you? 16?

Coming from the guy whose username is 'Frosty Piss', priceless!

Broccoli? Really?

[GenieGenieGenie]

Why on earth would you want to suck out the broccoli? This gadget needs a fiberscopic camera that will allow you to view the semi-digested morsels and suck out the ones you don't want to keep.

Soylent orange...

[Anonymous Coward]

... It's made of what eventually would have been people!

My Reaction

[jIyajbe]

Eeewww.

Seriously, EEEWWW.

Hard To Prepare Foods = The Win

[Anonymous Coward]

Several studies have show obese people prefer easily accessible food.

Stock up on hard-to-prepare food: eggs, flour, potatoes, etc.

These foods also happen to be inexpensive. And cuts down on all types of "impulse eating" as you ask yourself "Do I really want to spend 15 minutes on a snack or can I wait?" Of course, this practical advice doesn't make a guy on TV any money and doesn't make a mega-corp any money and doesn't sell books on a talk show ...

Re:Hard To Prepare Foods = The Win

[guttentag]

i love that guy, he's all about good tastes and how just fucking learning to cook can give your mouth a better time than jamming it full of lard

That's not comforting coming from someone with the username "kiddygrinder." In fact, please never comment on culinary matters again.

Re:Reminds me of food waste statistics

[LordLucless]

"There are nearly a billion malnourished people in the world, but all of them could be lifted out of hunger with less than a quarter of the food wasted in Europe and North America"

No, they couldn't, not unless that food could be transported to them and distributed before it became inedible. In countries with good infrastructure, that's not a problem, but those billion malnourished generally don't live in a place with good air freight service, well-maintained highways, and refrigerated trucking.

Any solution to global poverty is going to have to largely rely on bootstrapping local production. Despite importing a lot of food, most western nations export a whole lot more - they have sufficient capacity to feed themselves, and trade for variety/seasonality. Getting developing nations to the point of self sufficiency is key - anything else leaves them dependant on the developed world, which will screw them over when a drought/famine/whatever hits, and we have less excess to give.

why are people driven to eat too much?

[bzipitidoo]

A pithy answer like "Eat less and exercise" obviously doesn't cut it. That's like the joke about how to put a giraffe in a refrigerator. You open the refrigerator, put the giraffe in, and close the door.

Some findings and facts that have received some publicity lately:

1. Gut microbes adapt to the food you eat, so that simple calorie counting is not accurate. Fat people can gain weight on less food, because their gut microbes are more efficient.
2. Sleep deprivation is another cause of weight gain.
3. Chemicals such as Bisphenol A mimic hormones. Many other plastics are also problematic. They get into our bodies because we use them for food containers and linings. Once in the body, they screw with our metabolism. One common effect is weight gain.
4. The food industry's first priority is not our health, it's their bottom line. Most of us are also suckers for this, often measuring the value of food solely by price. It would be expecting too much to hope that the cheapest food is reasonably healthy, and of course it isn't. Breakthroughs that extend the shelf life of fresh food cheaply would be huge.

There are a bunch of other lifestyle factors that can cause weight problems: too much sitting, pollution, artificial lighting, stress, and disease. The obesity epidemic is not going to be solved with a "Just Say No" campaign to cheeseburgers.

Re:why are people driven to eat too much?

[lxs]

I'm reading a lot of excuses in your post. It's gut bacteria it's pollution, it's Big Corn, it's stress. I'm not reading anything about taking personal responsibility. Losing weight means running a calorie deficit. This will make you feel bad. The only way to get though that is to get off the notion that you should feel good all the time and volutarily put yourself in a situation where you're hungry and feeling bad. that feeling will pass in a couple of weeks and it will strengthen your willpower.

Couldn't people just eat less?

[davesag]

This looks to me to be the single most disgusting invention I've ever seen. Surely it's easier to just eat smaller meals rather than gorge, then pump partially digested food out through a pipe through your gut. I guess it tops the Segway as stupidest invention ever.