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 available in Australia.
As concern continues to grow about obesity, some doctors are alarmed that some treatments in the lucrative market aren't being adequately researched or followed up.
The Australian Therapeutic Goods 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."
A TGA spokeswoman confirmed the device was on the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods and approved for supply in Australia.
She said patients using it for "gastric drainage" did so under the treatment of a health professional.
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.
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, also available in Australia, that were inserted into patient's stomachs to reduce hunger.
He said endoscopic 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 weight-loss procedures.
A spokeswoman for AspireAssist's Australian distributor, Australasian Medical and Scientific Ltd, said the device met "clinical evidence criteria" for registration in Australia.
She said it was for use on obese adults, with BMI's above 35, who had failed with non-surgical weight loss treatment.
"The AspireAssist is intended for a long-term duration of use in conjunction with lifestyle therapy and continuous medical monitoring," she said.
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.
