Effect Of Retrograde Gastric Electrical Stimulation On Food Intake, Gastric Emptying, Visceral Sensation And Gastric Myoelectrical Activity In Healthy Humans

Obesity is one of the most prevalent health problems in Europe and the United States. The prevalence of overweight and obesity has remarkably increased in our country. The conventional treatments of obesity can be classified into three categories: basic treatment, pharmacotherapy, and surgical treatment. Typically, an obese patient first undergoes basic treatment. Acceptable weight loss is usually achieved with basic treatment. However, maintaining weight loss seems to be more difficult than losing weight, particular for patients who were treated with calorie restriction. Similar to the basic treatment, pharmacotherapy is also effective only for a short term. In addition, adverse events of the drugs limit their applications in patients with various comorbidities. While surgical treatment induces satisfactory long-term weight loss, its application is very limited due to substantial risks and complications associated with the surgical procedure. In short, there is a lack of satisfactory therapies for obesity.Obesity is known to be attributive to an imbalance between food intake and energy expenditure. A number of basic and clinical studies have suggested that enlarged gastric accommodation and accelerated gastric emptying may play an important role in obesity. Gastric motility is known to be regulated by myoelectrical activities. The gastric slow wave determines the maximum frequency and propagation of gastric contractions. In order to reduce food intake and induce weight loss of the obese patients, researchers tried to inhibit the gastric motility by modulate the gastric electrical activity. Implantable Gastric Stimulation (IGS) for weight loss is an exciting new concept for the treatment of obesity. It is unique since it does not alter the gastrointestinal anatomy but only change the gastric function and induce satiety. International investigations have demonstrated IGS to be the safest bariatric procedure in terms of both operative complications long-term consequence of weight loss. Recently, Chen at el. proposed retrograde gastric electrical stimulation (RGES) for weight loss. In this method, electrical stimulation was performed at a tachygastrial...