Is Cutting The Vagus Nerve The Answer To Weight Loss?
Last year, 200,000 Americans had weight loss surgery and while gastric bypass surgery can significantly reduce weight, the surgery comes with risks.
Now a procedure that was once commonly used to treat ulcers is being tested as a safe alternative to weight loss surgery.
Action News reporter Kimberly Tere has the details.
The vagus nerve controls your feeling of hunger.
Some even say every single thing the vagus nerve does is designed to make you gain weight.
That is why San Francisco Doctor Robert Lustig is testing laparoscopic vagotomy, a surgery in which the vagus nerve is cut.
"Every patient in the study said their hunger was gone, just gone. One comment I got from one patient was this is the first time in her life that she was not a prisoner to food," said Dr. Lustig.
While hunger was curbed, Dr. Lustig says they kept eating out of stress or habit.
