Varicose Veins – Pigs in China
Updated Wednesday, September 17, 2008 11:23 am
Varicose vein treatment eases hunger in pigs
WASHINGTON — A treatment for varicose veins helped cut the appetites of healthy, growing pigs and might offer a less radical alternative to weight-loss surgery for obese people, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
They injected a chemical into blood vessels supplying a very specific part of the stomach to cut off production of the hunger hormone ghrelin.
It made the pigs eat less, and tests showed their bodies were producing as much as 60 percent less ghrelin, they reported in the journal Radiology.
“With gastric artery chemical embolization, called GACE, there’s no major surgery,” Dr. Aravind Arepally of the John Hopkins University School of Medicine, who led the study, said in a statement.
“In our study in pigs, this procedure produced an effect similar to bariatric surgery by suppressing ghrelin levels and subsequently lowering appetite.”
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