If you’re not fat enough to qualify for today’s surgery options — or you’re too scared — an old ulcer operation may help you to control hunger and lose weight.

Vagotomy involves snipping the vagus nerve, which runs from the brain to the abdomen. Among other things, the nerve signals the stomach to produce gastric acid.

In the 1970s, surgeons treated some ulcer patients by cutting the vagus nerve at the front and back of the stomach. This gave patients relief from the acid.

But the vagus nerve also affects brain hormones that stimulate appetite and trigger our bodies to store fat.

Surgeons Soon Realized The Operation Caused Weight Loss

Animal studies later confirmed it.

But only now are doctors trying vagotomy as an alternative to gastric bypass, banding, and other surgical techniques.

That’s partly because nerve-snipping surgery is much less invasive today.

Instead of opening the entire abdomen, doctors use 5 pencil-sized cuts. The patients return home several hours later with little pain.

Only a few dozen patients are in the initial study at either the University of California, San Francisco or the University of Rochester.

No One Claims This Is A Cure-All For Obesity

But the first 11 patients, who are now a year past surgery, have lost an average of 18% of their excess weight.

That’s less than half the weight loss of traditional obesity surgeries.

Ten of these patients say they’re not hungry since the vagus nerve was snipped. But one became hungry again about 6 weeks after surgery. That person hasn’t lost weight.

Fortunately, no one has suffered serious side effects.

What Happens Now?

The doctors will study their patients for 18 months to see if this new technique should be investigated further.

Many surgeons doubt that vagotomy will work by itself. So they’re experimenting with adding it to banding the stomach.

Initial results seem to be promising. But it’s too early to call this a winner.

Still, it offers hope. And sometimes, that’s enough to keep you fighting the weight loss battle.