There are many treatments out there for weight loss, which involve either taking medications or surgery such as gastric bypass. Ideally,diet and exercise should be tried first before starting any medications or undergoing surgery.

Recently a novel device for weight loss has been approved. This is an electric stimulator which essentially sends small bursts of electricity through wires. These wires are attached to electrodes. Finally, the electrodes are attached to the skin and the energy is transferred to the patient.

For weight loss, these electrodes are attached near the vagus nerve, which runs on either side of the neck. Why this particular nerve? Well, the vagus nerve controls some functions of the gut. It turns out that stimulation of this nerve reduces appetite. And of course reduced appetite leads to weight loss.

Does it work? At least in limited studies it has been shown to be reasonably effective. Now, this device will certainly not be as effective as say gastric bypass surgery where weight loss of 50 to 100 pounds after a year or two is not uncommon. But it would be reasonable to expect enough pounds taken off to help reduce blood pressure and prevent a whole host of problems including diabetes.

Before you request this kind of treatment, you should know that it is only approved for use after other measures such as diet and exercise have been tried and failed. Still, it seems like a relatively benign way to lose weight.