A weight-loss device described as "medical bulimia" that drains undigested food from the stomach at the press of a button is among an explosion of new treatments for obesity.
As concern continues to grow about obesity in Australia, some doctors are alarmed that some treatments in the lucrative market aren't being adequately researched or followed up.
The US Food and Drug Administration-approved AspireAssist system connects a tube inserted into the stomach to an outside port on the skin of the belly, which is drained into an external device.
Its American manufacturer promises about 30 per cent of food is removed before calories are absorbed into the body when used 20 minutes after a meal.
"I just think it's medical bulimia," leading gastroenterologist Matthew Remedios said. "You have to wonder what we're doing. I'm not saying it's right or wrong but, as a community, we have finite resources and we are spending it on devices like this."
Mr Remedios said the device was on its way to Australia but Aspire's website indicates the product is already available.
Calls to its Australian distributor went unanswered on Sunday and Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration was unable to respond by deadline.
Dr Remedios, who said more than half of his patients at Brisbane's Wesley Hospital were overweight or obese, agreed with other experts that there was an increasing need for medical interventions in patients with a Body Mass Index above 50.
Photo: Matt Golding
More than 60 per cent of adults and more than one quarter of children are obese or overweight in Australia. Almost a third of adults are obese.
However, he said he was concerned about the growing use of new treatments, such as Aspire.
"There is an exciting number of procedures coming and implantable devices and manoeuvres we can do, but I think it's very important they don't escape into the entrepreneurial in the real world when they aren't being looked at in a research setting with large numbers," he said.
Another treatment that concerned Dr Remedios was solution-filled balloons that were inserted into patient's stomachs to reduce hunger.
He said laparoscopic sleeves, which used stitches to reduce the stomach's size, inserted by gastroenterologists instead of surgeons, had also not been widely researched.
"What are the long term implications?" he asked. "It's the short-term procedures [where] it's important to know what happens at five years? What happens at 10 years? Have they kept the weight off. That worries me."
Dr Remedios said it was "frustrating" that public hospitals had to pick up the expense when forced to treat complications, such as leaking and holes, from botched weight-loss procedures.
Dr Remedios spoke at the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists conference in Brisbane on Sunday.
The journalist attended the conference as a guest of ANZCA.