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The new capsule is swallowed like a pill, but it's not a drug, it's a gel for people to feel satiated, reports Dr. Max Gomez of CBS2.
The latest figures show that about two-thirds of Americans are overweight or obese.
Over the years, there have been a number of weight loss medications and, although most work to some extent, like all medications, they also have side effects.
Like so many people, Suzie Soto has been losing weight for years.
"I tried pills," she said. "A multitude of diets, shakes, everything else and nothing worked."
Now, there is a new option for millions of people like Soto who are trying to lose weight, capsules called Plenity.
Dr. Louis Aronne, a renowned obesity researcher at New York presyterian Weill Cornell, has conducted some of the clinical trials on Plenity and says they are actually considered a powerful new weight loss technology.
"This opens a whole new medical treatment to a new group of patients," he said.
The FDA has approved Plenity for anyone with a body mass index, or BMI, between 25 and 40. You only need to be 10 or 15 pounds more than ideal to qualify.
Once you swallow the capsules, they absorb 100 times their weight in water, forming a soft gel in the stomach.
Due to the unique molecular structure of the gel, it binds and integrates with food, slowing down absorption.
This gel-food complex occupies about a quarter of the average stomach. Because the gel is neither metabolized nor absorbed, it has no more side effects than placebo, but it has a double effect on weight loss.
"One feels quickly satiated, but by slowing the absorption of calories, one curbs appetite beyond one's filling effect," Aronne said.
In clinical trials, volunteers lost an average of 6.5% of their weight, but most have actually lost 10%, including diabetics and pre-diabetics who are most at risk for weight-related health problems.
Plenity will only be available later in the year. The cost and insurance coverage have not been determined.
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