It’s a stomach-turning idea - but an invention detailed in a US patent application published by Aspire Bariatrics of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, nevertheless holds out the hope of a treatment for morbid obesity without the invasive surgery and drawbacks of a gastric bypass. The idea is to let patients eat and drink as much as they like - but they then drain their stomach some 20 minutes after a meal by connecting a pump to a valve surgically installed on their abdominal wall.
