Bring Another Plate, I’ll Be Right There! by Pat Conrad MD

The Memorial Friday entry on this blog was apt, as I always start my summer festivities with gobs and mounds of delicious pulled pork and all the trimmings.  Truthfully, I think LDL worry is for wimps, and you can laugh at me when they take me in for the well-deserved CABG because it will have been worth it.

But summer gluttony need not be limited to those middle-age deniers who use compensatory exercise to offset gastronomical joy, oh no!

“Now the FDA has approved the AspireAssist for weight loss.  To drain food from the stomach, patients attach a smartphone-size device to the valve and empty the contents into a toilet in a process called ‘aspiration.’  After this first ‘drain,’ the person will squeeze a water-filled reservoir attached to the device to flush the stomach before draining the contents again, according to the FDA.  The researchers estimated that the patients removed about 30 percent of the contents of the stomach each time they used the system.”

There are of course concerns that the hormonal signals sent from the stomach and proximal GI pathways will be confusing to the rest of the system and cause altered absorption, nutritional problems, and as yet unforeseen discomforts, beyond the risk of adhesions, infections, inflammation, and potential loss of conjugality.

Soooo, it’s a G-tube with a pump that you can discreetly hook up in the men’s room at the local Golden Corral Buffett or between courses at a black-tie event.  I guess it won’t screw up your innards as bad as the permanent re-route of a gastric bypass, and best of all, you can go back for seconds.

 It this really what we are supposed to be about?

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