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Diet Pill Swells in Your Belly, Making You Feel Instantly Full

by Amar Toor on April 24, 2010 at 02:30 PM

diet pulls full
With KFC's Double Down "sandwich" now threatening to slap quadruple chins across much of America, people may soon begin chomping at the bit for equally extreme diet solutions to counteract the havoc wreaked by the Colonel. Gelesis, a Boston-based drug company, has apparently read the grease-stained handwriting on the wall, and has just concocted a new pill aimed at helping plus-sized Americans shed some pounds -- by convincing them that they're full.

As Xconomy reports, Gelesis' newest pill, Attiva, contains a bunch of super-absorbent hydrogel beads that swell up when introduced to water, meaning all you have to do is swallow one and you're full. Of course, Gelesis doesn't want to make anyone look like Lara Flynn Boyle, which is why the drug developers designed Attiva to fully blend with any ingested food. The hydrogel keeps whatever you eat in your stomach for a longer period, thus allowing your stomach more time to digest while the beads release the water they've absorbed. Once the train moves down to the low intestine, the beads begin to re-expand a bit, slowing the absorption of fat and sugar.

Since the pill never enters the bloodstream, Gelesis is marketing it more as a medical supplement as opposed to an actual drug, although it'll be up to the FDA to determine what category to file it under. If it manages to get approved, though, it could be a non-invasive alternative to stomach staples or gastric bypass surgery, both of which carry substantially more risk and discomfort. The idea of turning ourselves into walking waterbeds doesn't exactly sound pleasant, and you've got to imagine that at least one person will go overboard and end up looking like Augustus Gloop. But then again, it's clear that American obesity has become pretty extreme. If people begin downing Double Downs, perhaps it's time for us to double up our weight-loss remedies. [From: Xconomy, via: PopSci]

Tags: attiva, diet, double down, double down chicken sandwich, DoubleDown, DoubleDownChickenSandwich, drugs, gelesis, health, hydrogel, medicine, obesity, obesity epidemic, ObesityEpidemic, science, top, weight loss, WeightLoss

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