Balloon floats around the stomach
The tube is removed when filling is complete and the balloon floats around the stomach safely.
Once it is filled, the balloon is too big to get through the valve from the stomach to the bowel.
The trial by doctors in Rome shows that the whole procedure took only 10 to 15 minutes.
The idea is that the balloon reduces the working size of the stomach, without surgery. The theory is that the patient feels fuller and less need to eat.
The balloon has been designed to be used for six months. Any longer than that could be problematic as the acidic content of the stomach could have an effect on the silicone material. But if longer-term treatment is needed, a new balloon can be installed.
When it is no longer needed, the balloon is punctured, emptied, and pulled back up through the throat.
In the trial, the balloon treatment was used alongside a 1,000-calorie-a-day diet, and research showed that patients could lose 6lb a week.
The manufacturers, Inamed Health, claim that as the balloon creates a feeling of fullness, it acts as an aid to weight reduction and helps users adhere to a prescribed diet.
But successful weight loss still requires effort from the patient.
Patient must make an effort
"You will have a much greater chance of maintaining your weight loss after balloon removal if you maintain and improve the diet and behaviour changes you made while using it," says Inamed.
The system was designed for people who are at least 40 per cent above their ideal weight and who have failed to get prolonged success with other weight control programmes.
As well as being used as a stand-alone way of helping obese people to lose weight, it can also be used to reduce weight prior to surgery. And that, say the Italian researchers, may help reduce the risks associated with surgical procedures on overweight patients.
"The results show that treatment with the balloon is safe and effective," say the researchers, who are reporting their work in the International Journal of Obesity next month.
"In association with appropriate diet, it is significantly effective in weight reduction in morbidly obese patients."
Obesity is a major health problem in the UK and the number of people classed as obese has more than tripled in two decades to one in five.
It has been estimated that obesity accounts for 18 million days of sickness absence from work, and 30,000 premature deaths.
Each man and woman whose death could be put down to obesity loses, on average, nine years of life. Treating obesity costs the NHS at least £500 million a year, and the wider national costs of lower productivity is estimated at £2 billion a year.
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