The weight loss industry is at a pivotal point of change. Remarkably successful new treatments have been approved by the FDA in the past year, giving a widespread consumer market access to these new ways of tackling obesity. Here we take a look at the innovations, recent and upcoming, making waves in the field.
Drug-based Treatments
Last year, Webovy and Ozempic became new words in the lexicon, making headlines worldwide as weight loss industry that became available by self-injection. This year it looks like a new brand is going to trump the two, going by the name of Zepbound.
A similar treatment, it works by targeting the hormones associated with feeling full. While the former two drugs isolate just one hormone, Zepbound works on two hormones simultaneously, already yielding greater results in late-stage trials.
Keep an eye on this drug from Eli Lilly and Co, as it’ll soon be talked about everywhere.
Non-surgical Treatments
Gastric balloons have been around for over 30 years, providing high success rates among patients who require medical help to lose weight, without having to undergo the surgery involved with procedures like bands and sleeves.
The product has been taken one step further, with the FDA this year approving the Spatz3 model, the first balloon in the world with an adjustable feature. Patients with a BMI above 27 are eligible to search for a gastric balloon near me to find a clinic that offers the non-invasive product.
The adjustable feature addresses the shortfalls of traditional devices, reducing the rate of balloon intolerance by adjusting the size down. Over the months of implantation, the balloon size can also be adjusted up to maintain weight loss as the body gets used to the balloon.
Using AI For Weight Loss Industry
The propensity for AI to help with lifestyle changes is still to be fully mined, but ChatGPT isn’t the only AI program to go to for help on diet plans, workout plans, and general weight loss advice.
Dieting is a sensitive field where the wording and mindsets around the subject prove just as successful in achieving weight loss goals as the diets themselves.
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Developers at Pi AI recognize this, and that’s why they’re aiming to create an “ethical and empathetic” bot to provide a helping hand. $225 million went into making a new, emotionally intelligent AI language, that exhibits a more detailed, and perhaps lively, back-and-forth information gathering from the user. This has proved to be promising for the creation of diet plans that take into account the user’s emotional capacity for sticking to their goals. It still has a long way to go, but Pi AI is certainly one to watch as it develops further.
GoogleBard may not have the same gift for empathy, but it does have some seriously organized layouts when it comes to meal plans. Sticking to a limited calorie intake is hard as it is, without the added stressors of sourcing recipes accounting for the calorific quantities of each ingredient.
This AI bot streamlines both of these, laying out recipe plans in such a simple way that can easily be copied and pasted to a notes app to take with you straight to the supermarket.
With planning a consistent diet being one of the hardest parts of weight loss, AI may soon be the gateway to achieving those goals.
