Picking up the Pacing in Obesity: Medtronic acquires Transneuronix

You can't pick up a newspaper these days without finding obesity discussed as an epidemic in the US. In fact, there are 23 million Americans with a body mass index of 35 or greater, which means that they exceed their ideal weight by about 100 pounds. There are 8 million Americans that are even worse off, with a body mass index of 40 or more. This isn't just a cosmetic concern: the co-morbidities of obesity include cardiopulmonary failure, diabetes, hypertension, sleep apnea and asthma; consequences so deadly, that, when they occur in 30 million severely obese people, justify surgery, according to a 1991 consensus statement from the National Institutes of Health . That consensus hasn't been updated, but Elizabeth H. Singer, a spokesperson for the institutes does admit that, at least as observed from uncontrolled studies, surgical procedures can produce larger and more sustained weight loss than non-surgical treatments, including exercise, lifestyle modification or even drugs.

Drug treatments for obesity largely don't work, chiefly because it is a multifactorial disease in a system that has many redundancies. Gary Lubben, VP and general manager of Medtronic Inc. 's new business unit Medtronic Obesity Management says, "The digestive system has a very strong self-preservation mode." Lubben explains that obesity involves the brain, the digestive system, psychosocial factors and other variables, and that's why a single pill is rarely helpful. Surgeries on the other hand, which shrink the stomach and rewire the process of food absorption, do result in sustained weight loss