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 ORLANDO, Fla. (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Today, 127 million Americans are overweight. One out of every 200 Americans has had an amputation. What do overweight people and people missing a limb have in common? Futuristic technology could change their lives.
Alexis Gomez has battled weight her entire life. "I've tried diet center, Weight Watchers, South Beach, and Atkins," she says.
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At five foot three, Gomez's top weight was 259 pounds. So what got her from 259 to her 175-pound frame today? Not exercise. That simply maintains her weight. The weight loss started when she got an electronic pacemaker that shocks away fat. It's already approved in Europe, but is still under study in the United States.
 "Much like a cardiac pacemaker regulates the heart, it's thought that a gastric pacemaker can regulate the sensations of the stomach to get people to feel fuller on less food," Gary Foster, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and Director of the Eating Disorders Program at University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, tells Ivanhoe.
Electrodes implanted on the stomach wall send out impulses. Gomez can't feel them, but she says those impulses make her feel full faster. One study shows an average 23-pound weight loss with the device.
At the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Physiatrist Todd Kuiken, M.D., Ph.D., is using a high-tech approach to solve a different problem Jesse Sullivan needed.
"May the 9th, 2001, I made contact with 7,200 volts of electricity, and it run up one arm, across my chest and down the other one -- twice," Sullivan says.
Both arms were badly burned. "At 54 years old, I lost both my arms. It was hell."
 Sullivan is the first person in the world with a bionic arm, one he moves with his mind. After the amputation, Dr. Kuiken took four remaining nerves from Sullivan's arm and moved them to his chest muscles.
"When the person thinks 'close hand' that muscle contracts, we use a signal from it to tell the hand to close. The brain does not know it's connected to the wrong muscle anymore," Dr. Kuiken tells Ivanhoe.
Sullivan's thoughts fire the nerves and activate electrodes, which communicate with the computer embedded in his arm.
But here's the amazing part...
"When you touch Jesse in different places on his chest, it feels like you're touching his hand," Dr. Kuiken says. "Jesse, what's it feel like when I touch you right there?"
"Touching the palm of my hand above ... by the thumb and the first two fingers," Sullivan says.
 Sullivan says the bionic arm changed his life. "This has made my day right here. This has given me a glimpse into the future." And that glimpse has left us all asking: What's next?
Dr. Kuiken's research could someday help leg amputees with prosthetic limbs feel the ground they're walking on. He's done his nerve transfer procedure on five patients so far and is testing ways to make the arm function even more like a natural arm.
This article was reported by Ivanhoe.com, who offers Medical Alerts by e-mail every day of the week. To subscribe, go to: http://www.ivanhoe.com/newsalert/.
If you would like more information, please contact:
Electronic Weight loss
Kate Olderman
(215) 349-2056
kate.olderman@uphs.upenn.edu
Bionic Arm
Samantha Carlson
(312) 238-6046
http://www.ric.org
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