Inhibitory effects of intestinal electrical stimulation on food intake, weight loss and gastric emptying in rats

Abstract

The aim was to investigate the effects of intestinal electrical stimulation (IES) on food intake, body weight, and gastric emptying in rats. An experiment on food intake and weight change was performed in 22 rats on a control diet and 10 diet-induced obese (DIO) rats for 4 wk with IES or sham IES. The effect of IES on gastric emptying was performed in another 20 rats in the control group. We found that 1) in control rats, 4-wk IES resulted in a reduction of 18.2% in the total amount of food intake compared with sham-IES (P = 0.02); the rats treated with IES had a weight change of -1 +/- 7.8g (P = 0.03), which was equivalent to a weight loss of 6.2% due to IES when adjusted for normal growing. 2) Acute IES delayed gastric emptying by 20% in the control rats (P < 0.01). 3) In the DIO rats, 1-wk IES with the same parameters as those used in the control rats resulted in a significant reduction in the total amount of food intake (126.6 +/- 6.3 g vs. 116.9 +/- 3.2 g, P < 0.01). More reduction in food intake was noted, and a significant weight change was also observed when stimulation energy was increased. 4) No adverse events were observed in any of the experiments. In conclusion, IES delays gastric emptying, reduces food intake, and decreases weight gain in control growing rats. These data suggest that it is worthy to explore therapeutic potentials of IES for obesity.

Inhibitory effects and mechanisms of intestinal electrical stimulation on gastric tone, antral contractions, pyloric tone, and gastric emptying in dogs

“…Limitation of food intake and reduction of absorption are two major goals in the development of obesity treatment modalities. The induction of gastric distension (or reduced gastric tone) and delay of gastric emptying have been reported to reduce food intake (51). In addition, a few recent animal and human studies have shown an inhibitory effect of IES on fat absorption.…”

Prokinetic effects of mirtazapine on gastrointestinal transit

“…All pressure sensors were located in the jejunum with the most proximal one 15 cm distal to the duodenal cannula. Intestinal contractions measured from the middle sensor, which was 25 cm distal to the duodenal cannula, showed the best quality and were chosen to be analyzed (43), from 0 to 60 min.…”

Mechanisms and Potential Applications of Intestinal Electrical Stimulation

“…The earliest discovery of the inhibitory effect of IES on other organ of the gut was the IES-induced delay in gastric emptying (see Table 1) and this inhibitory effect of proposed for the treatment of dumping syndrome [11,80,81]. A number of recent studies have demonstrated similar reflexive effects of electrical stimulation along the gut [50,[82][83][84][85][86]. IES with long pulses inhibits both upper gastrointestinal motility and lower gastrointestinal motility.…”

“…Potential applications of IES for the treatment of obesity have been reported in a number of recent studies [76,84,85]. Obesity is one of the most prevalent public health problems in the United States, claiming over 400,000 lives and costing over $100 billion in the country every year Fig.…”

“…In rats, IES was reported to reduce food intake and body weight in both lean and diet-induced obese rats (Fig. 8) via the inhibition of gastric emptying, acceleration of intestinal transit, and/or reduction of fat absorption [77,85]. Mechanisms involving gastrointestinal hormones have also been elucidated.…”