Woman Loses 60 Lbs. with New Weight Loss Procedure That’s Less Invasive Than Gastric Bypass

The procedure, called endoscopic ablation, is still in its clinical trial phase

A woman says she lost a significant amount of weight after undergoing a minimally-invasive procedure.

In an interview with Good Morning America on Thursday, May 9, Brooke Nelson shared that she’s lost 60 pounds since participating in a new clinical trial after weighing in at more than 200 pounds prior.

"The constant just wanting of food has drastically decreased," she told the outlet. "There's still moments where I want a chocolate chip cookie, but there's a lot more moments when I find myself wanting something like greens."

Dr. Christopher McGowan also spoke with GMA about the procedure, called endoscopic ablation, which reportedly targets ghrelin, also known as the "hunger hormone.”

During the procedure, a camera is inserted into a patient's stomach as fluids are administered. This aids in protecting the underlying stomach tissue.

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Next, a small device burns the upper lining of the stomach where ghrelin is produced. The hormone is said to transmit messages to a person’s brain, signaling that they are hungry. It also inhibits insulin secretion and helps bodies to store fat.

McGowan, founder of True You Weight Loss in Cary, North Carolina, has tried his technique on 10 female patients so far for the clinical trial.

"We do have patients who are a year or more beyond their initial procedure, and what we are seeing is that they continue to have a diminishment, decrease in hunger [and] continue to report greater control over eating," the gastroenterology specialist told GMA, adding that trial participants, on average, reduced their overall weight by seven percent.

According to McGowan, the procedure could potentially offer patients the opportunity to see substantial weight loss without the downtime of surgery or associated risks.

"For patients who might be afraid of surgery, this may be more acceptable," he said of endoscopic ablation.

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However, this does not mean that the procedure, though less invasive, is completely free from risks.

"Risks of this technology could include things like ulcers, bleeding, somehow injuring the stomach. These were things we were really careful about," he told GMA.

"In this case, everything was mild and that was the cramping and gas and nausea, things you'd expect when you'd perform a procedure on the stomach. But there were no complications whatsoever."

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This is the first time the procedure has been tested on humans.

McGowan will present the results of the trial formally later this month at a medical conference, known as Digestive Disease Week, in Washington, D.C., per ABC News.

Additional testing will need to be conducted before endoscopic ablation can be approved for the general public.

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