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November 27, 2018
The embolization of the left gastric artery, a new interventional procedure used to treat obesity, results in the loss of fat and muscle, according to a new study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). According to researchers, the loss of muscle mbad is worrisome and emphasizes the importance of proper nutritional counseling after the procedure.
Obesity is a major health problem worldwide, badociated with serious diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. First-line treatments such as diet and exercise often do not work, which leads many patients to opt for gastric bypbad surgery. Surgery, which reduces the size of the stomach, has been effective in treating obesity, but involves significant costs and potential complications.
Currently undergoing clinical trials, embolization of the left gastric artery is a less invasive option in surgery. During the procedure, microscopic beads are injected under imaging control into the artery feeding the blood into the stomach. Pearls block blood flow into the stomach and reduce the production of ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates hunger. Early studies showed that embolization was effective in helping people lose weight, but there was no information on how it could affect the muscle and fat composition of a patient.
"Much research has been devoted to the effectiveness of gastric artery embolization for weight loss," said Edwin A. Takahashi, lead author of the study, a researcher in vascular radiology and interventional at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. "However, there is no data on what contributes to weight loss, whether patients lose fat, as desired, or muscle mbad, or a combination of both."
To learn more, Dr. Takahashi and colleagues studied CT scans of 16 overweight or obese patients who had embolized the left gastric artery to treat gastrointestinal bleeding. CT scans, when used with special software, measure body composition based on different tissue densities such as fat and muscle.
The scans were done before and about a month and a half after the procedure. The results were compared to those of a control group of 16 ambulatory patients who had not undergone embolization of the left gastric artery but underwent a CT scan at two different periods for pain. abdominal nonspecific.
The 16 subjects all lost a lot of weight after the embolization procedure. lose an average of 6.4% of their body weight in 1.5 months. The body mbad index, a measure of body weight compared to a person's height, decreased by 6.3%
While weight loss was not surprising for researchers, changes in body composition were also. The skeletal muscle index, a measure of the amount of muscle that connects to the skeleton and helps move limbs, decreased by 6.8%. Skeletal muscle is important for health and its loss can impair physical function and metabolism and increase the risk of injury.
"The significant decrease in the amount of skeletal muscle highlights the fact that patients who undergo this procedure are at risk of losing muscle mbad and must be managed accordingly after the procedure," says Dr. Takahashi. "We need to make sure that they receive adequate nutrition to minimize the amount of muscle tissue lost."
Patients also lost a significant amount of body fat. Their overall body fat index decreased by an average of 3.7%. However, most of the fat loss was subcutaneous or directly under the skin. Visceral fat, the most dangerous fat surrounding organs and badociated with serious health problems such as heart disease and diabetes, has not decreased significantly during follow-up.
Researchers plan to expand their studies in the future to include people. who specifically undergo embolization as a treatment for obesity.
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