Mon, Oct-09-23, 00:10
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Plan: Muscle Centric
Stats: 238/153/160
BF:
Progress: 109%
Location: UK
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Swedish scientists develop a molecular 'sieve' as a solution to the obesity epidemic
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I tried the alternative to the fat jab — did I lose weight?
First it was the Danes with Wegovy. Now Swedish scientists have come up with a solution to the obesity epidemic: SiPore. Michael Odell tries drinking it
What is it with Scandinavia and global weight-loss products? For years their big hit was Ryvita, a crispbread with the texture of budget flooring material that I have occasionally, with a heavy heart, spread with cottage cheese. Recently the weight-loss drug Wegovy has swept all before it — last month it was made available on the NHS — making its Danish manufacturer, Novo Nordisk, more valuable than the country’s economy (it also makes Ozempic, ostensibly a diabetes treatment but which is also used for weight loss).
Now Swedish developers are about to enter the fray with SiPore, an orally ingested molecular “sieve” that captures the stomach’s digestive enzymes slowing the food-burning process. The gel, which is still undergoing clinical trials and won’t reach the market until spring 2025, will mean lower blood sugar and fewer cravings, the company claims.
“Why do we tolerate road deaths?” asks Sana Alajmovic, the chief executive of Sigrid Therapeutics, which makes SiPore. “It’s the same for metabolic diseases like diabetes and obesity — no one should fall ill with these lifestyle diseases.”
SiPore contains micron-sized particles of silica (one micron is equal to a millionth of a metre), which themselves have tiny pores. Its developers claim that stomach enzymes amylase (which digests carbohydrates) and lipase (which breaks down fats) become trapped in these pores, making digestion less efficient and therefore slower.
“We have become too successful at converting modern processed foods into energy,” says Eric Johnston, the company’s chief technology officer. We’re talking on Zoom and he’s holding up what looks like one of those plastic laundry balls you put in the washing machine to stop your clothes creasing. This is a giant model of a SiPore particle.
“We call SiPore a device because it’s a non-pharmaceutical intervention,” he says. “The silica particles do not enter the bloodstream, they act locally and are both sustainable and inert. “You can put it in a muffin and bake it to 600C and it remains stable,” Alajmovic says.
Actually, silica’s reputation as an inert substance (it’s commonly used in everything from concrete and industrial sand to coffee creamers and cosmetics) is in question. A recent Stanford University study found that silica can degrade a natural human antioxidant called glutathione. However, SiPore promises to revolutionise the lives (and metabolisms) of what Sigrid estimates to be the world’s 420 million prediabetics (70 per cent of whom go on to develop diabetes); indeed, anyone who is overweight or whose metabolic profile means they feel tired or hungry. “We estimate there will be 783 million such people by 2045,” Alajmovic asserts.
I am not prediabetic, but I would like to lose some weight. More specifically, I would like to stop feeling hungry in the evenings. I have never liked the sound of hacking one’s endocrine system, or of the possible side-effects (Wegovy’s include headache, nausea and diarrhoea). Also, I know someone on Wegovy who looks like a deflated party balloon version of himself. However, as my wife sometimes points out, when I snack on leftovers while watching Newsnight, looking like an inflated party balloon version of yourself is not great either.
Before the courier arrives with my SiPore sachets I weigh myself. The scales flash at 104kg. Listen, I am not fat. I just like to honour my ancestors by laying down significant blubber stores ahead of the long winter. OK, for the Ice Age.
The sachets arrive bearing various warnings in German, Hungarian and Slovak. The idea is that you gulp one sachet with the first mouthful of your meal. Thereafter the tiny silica particles circulate, trapping lipase and amylase and leaving some food undigested.
I snip the first sachet with scissors, but the pressure exerted by my thumb and forefinger means the glutinous fluid inside immediately shoots up into my face.
Eventually I get one open, eat a mouthful of my bean salad, then suck my sachet dry. (SiPore tastes like an economy peach-flavoured yoghurt drink, though Sigrid is considering mango, lemon and even iced tea flavours.) After that I eat the rest of my meal. I think my enzymes must be fighting back. Half an hour later I want toast.
“SiPore delivers long-term results naturally,” Alajmovic says when I report this. “It’s like cheese: we are cutting it thin slice by thin slice.”
Right now, cheese doesn’t seem like an appropriate metaphor. I like cheese. That’s why I’m eating all this sand.
In the evening I take another sachet along with a plate of smoked mackerel, hummus and some celery and carrot sticks. I think I feel fuller than usual and go to bed.
Next morning I wake up and make coffee. It usually suppresses my appetite and I can fast until midday without a problem. Today, though, I’m starving. It’s as though SiPore has successfully held my digestive enzymes hostage overnight, but they are now loose again, roaming the back alleys of my gut looking for a bacon sandwich. Odd. I eat a huge breakfast with another SiPore sachet. Now I feel full.
But is disrupting the natural secretion of digestive enzymes even a good idea? Sigrid claims that data shows an impressive flattening of long-term blood sugar levels. But I notice its data is illustrated with a graphic of a double cheeseburger. SiPore may help to slow the digestion of ultra-processed foods, but why not just eat foods that take a long time to digest (and release their energy) in the first place?
Giles Yeo, a professor of molecular neuroendocrinology at the University of Cambridge and the author of Why Calories Don’t Count, agrees. “Why not just eat roughage?” he says. “Why would you need to ingest silica particles when prunes could do the same job?”
“Absolutely true,” Johnston agrees. “But if you go to the doctor and learn that you are prediabetic or have early-stage type 2 diabetes, you will be advised to change lifestyles and exercise more. For some people that is very difficult. We are human, aren’t we? SiPore will at least help you start that process. You can eat fast food and with slow digestion it becomes slow food. You then improve from there.”
Alajmovic and Johnston are both young, radiant-looking Swedes. I assume they grew up eating elk steaks or fresh herring from a glistening lake each morning. I am wrong.
“My father is a doctor,” Alajmovic says. “He is an educated, privileged, middle-class white male and yet he is prediabetic. So is my brother. If they cannot manage their metabolism healthily then what chance do the rest of us have? My father will always take insulin, but he is on SiPore and has stopped taking metformin [a drug used in the treatment of type 2 diabetes].”
Tailored nutrition and metabolic management are big business. Wegovy can now be prescribed free by the NHS for a limited period, but otherwise can cost £199 for a month’s injections. I have friends who have signed up to the Zoe app, which, after an initial analysis of gut flora, blood sugar and fats via a stool sample, will provide real-time nutritional feedback. But it costs £299.99 for the initial test and £24.99 a month thereafter. I have also tried Lumen, a breathalyser device that analyses CO2 levels and uses this data to deliver nutritional prompts, again in real time (but it’s £249 for the device and then £349 for 12 months of analysis). The makers of SiPore won’t tell me what it will cost when it launches in 2025, but I don’t think it will be cheap. This month they are launching a food supplement containing a smaller dosage of SiPore particles, which is aimed at the wellbeing market rather than diabetics and will cost “under €100” a month. Also, SiPore isn’t individually tailored. It feels like a blunderbuss approach — all fats and carbohydrates will be digested more slowly and some not at all.
Yeo has already seen what undigested fat can do to a person. “There is already a drug available that inhibits lipases [there are three types] and it does indeed work, but it has horrendous side-effects at the ‘back end’. If the fat you eat is less digested, it has to leave somehow and it results in oily poo. This is not something to aspire to because it is leaky and smelly. If SiPore ends up with even a proportion of these effects, is that better?”
One doesn’t want to be indelicate, but — aren’t we going to need wider sewage pipes and bigger toilets?
“No, because we are not catching all your digestive enzymes so we are not talking huge amounts of undigested material,” Johnston reassures me.
The real test for me is my habitual blood sugar crash at about 4pm. That’s when I find myself poking around for something sweet to eat. Could be horrible mints left over from Christmas. Could be Haribo in the glove compartment of the car. Five days in and SiPore has not fixed this. After six days I am not experiencing drastic results and I begin to envy the testimonials of others on the SiPore trial. According to materials provided by Sigrid, 84 per cent say they are seeing good results and some have already had to order smaller pairs of trousers. I wonder if I’m in the 16 per cent who felt otherwise. I wonder if I should ask for their old trousers.
However, on day six I attend a big lunch party and take a SiPore sachet with my first mouthful of roast chicken (I am with family members who I have not seen for a while — as I lean surreptitiously to one side to gulp my sachet I am forced to explain I do not have a drug problem). For the first time afterwards I do feel full and decline seconds. Also, later that evening I do not feel as tired as normal and drive from London back to Bristol (usually I’d avoid a night drive). Perhaps my glucose curve is flattening out. When I weigh myself on day seven I have lost 1kg. Not an epiphany by any means, but at least I don’t have uneven weight loss. And because SiPore’s makers insist it is inert, they claim it is suitable for long-term use.
“Go slowly and your lifestyle improvements will last. We hope SiPore will give you the energy to improve your exercise but if you have a long-term condition, it can be used on an ongoing basis,” Alajmovic says.
Sigrid have big plans for SiPore. It believes different versions of its micron-sized silica can sieve out all types of undesirables. For example, they are working with Birmingham University’s College of Medical and Dental Sciences on a mouthwash (SiPore will limit bacteria’s access to harmful sugars and therefore increase oral hygiene). There are also plans for a range of “functional foods” containing SiPore, ie chocolate bars and fast foods that will be only partially digested. Most surprising of all, they plan a proprietary cat food.
“In the UK up to 50 per cent of your cats are obese and owners don’t even realise it,” Alajmovic says. “We believe SiPore can be adapted to help. It’s very exciting. No one should feel hostage to their lifestyle. Not even cats.”
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/...eight-grvpn09h7 |
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