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Washington DC. [USA]Nov. 27 (ANI): A new interventional procedure called embolization of the left gastric artery, usually used to treat obesity, results in the loss of fat and muscle.
According to a new study, the loss of muscle mass is worrisome and emphasizes the importance of proper nutritional counseling.
Obesity is one of the major health problems in the world, linked to serious diseases such as heart disease, cancer and diabetes. First-line treatments such as diet and exercise often do not work.
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 have shown that embolization is effective in helping people lose weight, but there is no information on how it could alter the muscle and fat composition of a patient.
"Many researches have been devoted to the effectiveness of gastric artery embolization for weight loss," said lead author Edwin A. Takahashi. "However, there is no data on what contributes to weight loss, whether patients lose fat, as desired, or muscle mass, or a combination of both."
The researchers studied the CT scan of 16 obese patients who had embolized the left gastric artery to treat gastrointestinal bleeding. Computed tomography, used with special software, measured body composition based on different tissue densities such as fat and muscle.
The analyzes were done before and about 1.5 months after the procedure. The results were compared to those of a control group of 16 ambulatory patients who did not have embolization of the left gastric artery, but underwent a CT scan at two different times for nonspecific abdominal pain.
After the embolization procedure, the 16 people experienced significant weight loss, losing an average of 6.4% of their body weight over a month and a half.
Although weight loss was not surprising to researchers, changes in body composition have been. 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 mass and must be managed accordingly after the procedure," Takahashi said. "We need to make sure that they receive adequate nutrition to minimize the amount of muscle tissue that they lose."
Patients have also lost a significant amount of body fat. The overall body fat index decreased on average by 3.7%. However, most of the fat loss was subcutaneous or directly under the skin.
Visceral fat, the most dangerous fat surrounding organs and associated with serious health problems such as heart disease and diabetes, has not decreased significantly during follow-up.
Source: ANI
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