MIT's Vibrating Weight Loss Pills

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), obesity has become an incredibly common disease that is just as serious and costly in the US. Though many theories find too much food coupled with a sedentary lifestyle as the most prevalent causes of the disease, obesity can also affect some groups of people more than others, either through socioeconomic status, race, or gender.

Being a public health crisis linked to ailments such as diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and cancer, impacting over 100 million adults and children, American organizations, as well as federal and state policymakers, are continuously looking for ways to curb obesity.

While obesity is most often combatted through strict diets, surgeries, or GLP-1 receptor medications such as Ozempic and Wegovy injections, MIT scientists are working on a less invasive and exorbitant method, that is through vibrating pills stimulating a sense of fullness in the stomach.

Stretching Receptors

Regarded as a weight loss pill, the hormone-inducing capsule developed by MIT is aptly named the Vibratory Ingestible BioElectronic Stimulator (VIBES), describing exactly what it does. The capsules, sized similarly to a large vitamin, are to be ingested multiple times daily on an empty stomach, about 20 to 30 minutes before a meal.

Upon consumption, the diet pills trigger signals to the brain that create a feeling of fullness in the stomach. This process naturally occurs when one consumes a large meal or has their stomach filled with liquid by drinking a glass of water before eating. The vibrating pill simply speeds up the process.

When one’s stomach expands, mechanoreceptors, otherwise known as stretch receptors, send signals to the brain via the vagus nerve to stimulate insulin and hormones like C-peptide, Pyy, and GLP-1. Aside from helping one digest food, the insulin and hormones lead one to feel full. When this occurs, ghrelin, the “hunger hormone” that essentially tells us we are hungry, goes down.

Speed from Vibration

Harvard biomedical engineer Shriya Srinivasan, the lead author of the study, believes that the stretch receptors can be activated faster through vibration, hence the vibrating, weight loss pills. The pills, powered by a silver oxide battery, have outer casings that would dissolve when exposed to gastric acid. Once dissolved, the buzzing, which Srinivasan says is even gentler than vibrations from an electric toothbrush, begins, running for an average of 38.2 minutes.

Simply put, the vibration omitted from VIBES impersonates the feeling of satiety from early on during the meal, lessening the amount of food one would feel the need to consume. This process, while mainly meant to tackle obesity, is also applicable to diseases that cause a constant craving for food, such as polyphagia and Prader-Willi syndrome.

While testing the capsule on pigs, the MIT team saw a 40% drop in consumption. Treated with the diet pill for quite some time, with one passing through the digestive tract in four to five days, the team also noticed that the pigs gained weight more slowly. Compared to the control group, which gained a daily weight of 0.8kg, the pigs that took the VIBES weight loss pill only gained 0.7kg. The pills are said not to cause any obstruction, perforation, or damage in the pigs’ stomachs. Though the capsules have only been tested on animals, their effects on humans are expected to be one and the same or, at the very least, of resemblance.

Currently, MIT scientists are undergoing more testing to confirm VIBES’ safety in the human stomach before going through with further production. In addition to this, they are looking for ways to make the pill stay in the stomach for longer, possibly through wireless control of the pill’s positions and movements or by equipping them with an on and off button.

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