That’s what a preliminary study published in June 2018 in the journal Nature Materials suggested, and although the pill has been tested only in rats, the authors are hopeful the medication could be on the market for human use within five years. The compound — which the researchers have dubbed “LuCI,” short for “luminal coating of the intestine”— is designed to be taken orally before a meal. It works by temporarily providing a film over the intestine so only a limited amount of food can be absorbed through the body, potentially aiding weight loss, and helping prevent blood sugar spikes in people with type 2 diabetes. RELATED: The Weight Loss Plans to Try and the Fad Diets to Skip for Results
What Makes LuCI Different From Similar Weight Loss Pills
It’s not the first time scientists have attempted to create “weight loss surgery in a pill.” More than a decade ago, a pill formerly known as Zetacap, which is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), was referred to as the “gastric bypass pill,” ABC News reported, but LuCI stands out because it contains sucralfate, a medication approved by the FDA decades ago to treat ulcers. Additionally, the surgeons and materials scientists working on LuCI took on a less-common approach to create the pill than has been attempted in previous research, says study author Ali Tavakkoli, MD, bariatric surgeon and codirector of the Center for Weight Management and Metabolic Surgery at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “Our approach is different because we’re targeting the GI tract specifically with a compound that has no systemic absorption and no effects on the liver, brain, pancreas, or other organs involved in glucose or appetite control,” says Dr. Tavakkoli. “It just works locally on the gut,” he added. The researchers specifically studied how the pill helps control blood sugar levels, but also noted it could help with weight loss in a similar manner to gastric bypass surgery. The surgery alters a patient’s digestive process and how the body absorbs nutrients, and the pill is believed to act in the same way. Being overweight or obese is one of the biggest risk factors for developing type 2 diabetes, especially for those with body fat concentrated in their stomach (called visceral fat), as opposed to other regions of the body, according to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Excess fat in this region of the body can lead to chronic inflammation, which may in turn contribute to insulin resistance — the hallmark of type 2 diabetes, the NIDDK notes. But losing just 5 to 7 percent of your body weight can help stabilize blood sugar levels and help prevent prediabetes from progressing into full-blown type 2 diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, separate research published in December 2017 in the journal The Lancet suggested following a strict, low-calorie diet, which can result in weight loss, may help reverse the full-blown form of the disease. RELATED: Losing This Much Weight May Help Reverse Type 2 Diabetes, Study Suggests When researchers administered LuCI to the normal-weight rodents, their response to glucose was lowered by 47 percent within an hour. And a couple of hours later, the effect disappeared. Controlling glucose, or blood sugar levels, is important for cell function and to keep the organs healthy.
Possible Health Risks of the Weight Loss Pill
Other than the fact that the findings from the current study are very early, a concern of creating a pill like this is that it “puts a Band-Aid on the problem, instead of dealing with the root issues of obesity,” says Nancy P. Rahnama, MD, a bariatric physician in private practice in Beverly Hills, California, who was not involved in the research. Additionally, she notes there’s the potential the pill may compromise the absorption of beneficial nutrients. “There are a lot of consequences with decreasing absorption, such as hypoglycemia,” says Dr. Rahnama. “We need to be able to absorb nutrients — that’s the whole point of food.” RELATED: 10 Warning Signs of Low Blood Sugar Hypoglycemia is when a person’s blood sugar is too low. If someone has the condition then takes the pill with a meal, he or she will likely be unable to return blood sugar levels to normal because their intestine has been coated, she explains, noting that the pill doesn’t seem like a long-term, successful plan for controlling diabetes. Nutrient deficiencies are also a concern for those who undergo bariatric surgery. In particular, iron, calcium, vitamin B12, and vitamin D metabolism are affected, Tavakkoli points out. But he doesn’t suspect absorption to be significantly compromised with the pill because the bowel coating is only present for a few hours. He suggests patients could potentially take a multivitamin or calcium when there’s no coating of the bowel to provide the supplements they need, “to avoid any kind of intravenous treatment such as iron or (vitamin) B12 shots.” If successful after larger, more rigorous studies in humans, LuCI may have the potential to provide a much-needed alternative to bariatric surgery, which is not only invasive but also irreversible. The surgery — which an estimated 216,000 people in the United States underwent in 2016 — comes with a long list of other health risks as well, including excessive bleeding, lung problems, and gastrointestinal leaks, according to the Mayo Clinic. LuCI “could be a therapeutic approach that is safer and associated with significantly less complications, and thus can potentially help a wide [type 2 diabetes] patient population,” the authors, who are now testing the pill on rodents that are obese and have type 2 diabetes, conclude in their published paper. If all goes well, they hope to test on humans within the next year or two.
