On August 6, 2024, the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) suspended the marketing of all the allurion gastric balls. Putting on the market, distribution and use are suspended and the company must easily withdraw all its products from the market.
While the number of obesity people continues to increase – 800 million individuals suffer from this chronic pathology worldwide, including 8.5 million French people – gastric balloons appear more and more as an interesting option. Those developed by allarion – a weight loss platform founded in 2009 – seem to seduce ever more followers. Decryption.
A gastric balloon placed in just 15 minutes
Invented by two Harvard students, the gastric ball of the Allurion laboratory comes in the form of a small capsule which, once swallowed and filled with water, reaches the size of a grapefruit in the stomach and provides an immediate feeling of satiety.
If this ball 2.0 is mainly intended for overweight or obese people whose BMI is greater than 27, diabetic people are also targeted.
“”The interest of this gastric balloon is that it requires absolutely no invasive act to put it in place or to remove it. It comes in the form of a capsule connected to a very fine small catheter that is ingested with the patient. We then do a radiography to check your position in the stomach, then swell it with water by the catheter. The objective being that this capsule that has become balloon reaches the size of a grapefruit“, Specifies Dr. Boullenois, bariatric surgeon and follower of the device for several years.
Once the ball is filled, the catheter is removed and the patient can immediately go home.
The undesirable effects (nausea, vomiting, stomach cramps, reflux, etc.), frequent in the first days, remain “easily controllable thanks to taking medication“Note the surgeon.
The other advantage of this device?
“”It naturally eliminates in the stool after 4 months. Which avoids any invasive act or possible pain“, he specifies.
As for profits, weight loss of around 10 to 15% is expected – and noted.
“”This weight loss is partly lasting thanks to dietary support issued to patients. They relearn to eat well, to listen to their feelings of satiety, which means that the effects of the ball will be extended in time, even once it will no longer be present“, Details the doctor.
In addition to the gastric balloon, each patient can indeed benefit from a balance and a connected watch, in order to follow the evolution of their weight as and when. Thanks to these digital tools, the doctor and nutritionist of the patient follow his progress day after day.
Team Work Makes The Dream Work. Allurion’s Elipse Program is a Multidisciplinary Program: Nutritionists, Dieticians, Psychologists, Sport Coaches… can be involved to support the patients’ Weight loss.#obesity #Weightloss #health #HealthTech #healthcare #Overweight pic.twitter.com/8cqrovsmlr
– Allurion Technologies (@Alluriontech) FEBRUARY 11, 2021
If Dr. Boullenois believes that the device is not “magic”, he however readily admits that it is a product with efficiency “very interesting“, causing few side effects and complications (around 2 out of 1000).
Nestlé also develops an slimming pill
Allurion is not the only one on the market to develop capsules dedicated to weight loss: Nestlé has recently joined the Israeli company Epitomee to develop an slimming pill, allowing to reduce the desire to eat too much or snack after meals.
The pill follows the same process: it swells in the stomach to provide a feeling of satiety. Nestlé Health Science clarified having “exclusive rights to market the capsule worldwide”.
A large -scale test is now expected by the end of the year to validate its effects.