Jelly Belly: Italian scientists are testing a new diet pill that turns into a clear, gelatinous blob the size of a tennis ball that may help shrink waistlines by giving dieters a sense of satiety.
"The effect is like eating a nice plate of pasta," said Luigi Ambrosio, lead researcher on the project.
The unnamed pill is made from a cellulose compound of hydrogel, a material that's powdery when dry but plumps up to a cousin of Jell-O when wet. The gel can soak up to 1,000 times its weight. A gram in capsule form quickly balloons from the size of a spit wad to a ball that holds nearly a liter of liquid.
Let's recap:
Exhibit A:
A Nice Plate of Pasta.
A Nice Plate of Pasta.
Exhibit B:
Happy Fun Ball.
Happy Fun Ball.
Interesting. As long as the temporary dessication of one's stomach doesn't cause problems, I can see this as a solution for someone who can't stop at just one nice plate of pasta.
I'm wondering how it "passes"...
Out the other end, I'd imagine.
The "blob" degrades after a few hours into slime. It's only cellulose, your stomach digests it quite easily. This is its big advantage over balloons.
AIUI, the big problem is the extreme hydrophilic nature of this stuff. If you've ever got hydrogel cat litter stuck to your tongue, you'll know just how painful this can be. What the Italians have done is to find a way of slowing down the absorbtion of this stuff to make it safely deliverable.
I'm not asking someone on the internet how they got cat litter stuck to their tongue.
I'm just not.
*twitch*
I wonder if this is at all useful for people with excess stomach acid, or if you'd just end up with a large, deadly blob of horrible, horrible acid.
by swallowing the pill down the wrong pipe.
damnit
yummie :/ It could be a chance for some people. Sure. But in the end they will have to change their way of living and not only eat this ... thing oO
Surely nothing bad could come of using this.
Yes... What could POSSIBLY go wrong? Let's all have a big bowl of it right now! I wonder if it comes in Popcorn flavor?
As a fat bastard, I am intrigued by this development.
Mind you, I eat for taste rather than fullness so this probably won't solve anything.
Oh my God, that stuff actually exists! It featured on last night's Hustle as an essential component of their complicated casino heist. I'd assumed it was made up.
I'm sure the companies would LOVE to be allowed to sell this as a diet aid. The reason many people have trouble losing weight is their stomachs get bloated so harder to fill. I few months using this and it would be impossible for people to come off it without feeling desperatly hungry all the time.
In the past they have put balloons in people's stomaches to give them a sense of being full.
It didn't work.
Between the balloon getting stuck in not so good places, and it really not causing the desired effect, they ended up not using that as a treatment.
More info here
I think a collar that shocks the bejezus out of you when you eat would be a very effective weight loss tool.
fab_icon!
Also, highly entertaining after someone figures out how to activate it with a remote control of some sort.
Pies to the face should do it.
Every once in a blue moon, I botch the job of swallowing a pill properly and it gets lodged in my esophagus. It kind of hurts, but you can wash it down with some tea or something without much of a problem.
I'm just wondering what happens when you do that with this thing.
I don't think it would be much of a problem. You're supposed to take it with *two* glasses of water.
Hmmm... ruptured internal organs and dehydration.
"'Obesity is such an enormous problem,' said Ambrosio."
"Obesity is such an enormous problem," Ambrosio weighed in.
MMM.
Tapeworm is so Over.
The fact that it lists "No baths!" implies that at one time baths were used as a weight loss method? Explain?
presumably hot baths like saunas? sweat it out, etc.
the urban legend about maria callas never dies...
it's like in the little prince, when there's the guy selling pills which allow you to not need to drink water. Then what happens to the simple joy of a glass of water on a hot day?
I'd eat it.