I had already talked about the gastric balloon, a minimally invasive balloon ( Obalon ) that is swallowed by the patient, inflates in the stomach and is then disconnected through a small endoscopic procedure: an alternative method to bariatric surgery that triples the results of diet and training on obese patients. : off 14 kilos in six months, with the right guidelines on diet and training. Undoubtedly a modest weight loss, but not too much if you consider that patients subjected to the balloon technique feel less hungry, exactly as if they had a smaller stomach, and are satisfied more easily.
But the technology for overweight and obesity problems has moved on, and today there is a gastric ballooncalled Elipse which has one more advantage over Obalon:

it is ingested and after 4-6 months it naturally disintegrates in the stomach, eventually being evacuated.
This allows the patient to avoid any surgical treatment.

In a recent study it was found that Elipse allowed a sample of obese patients to lose up to almost 18 kilos in 6 months   and almost 16 in 4 months.always with diet and training recommendations. It works like the previous gastric balloon: it is inserted by drinking it in a glass of water (like a tablet), it swells in the stomach, preventing the patient from eating more. But it should not be removed at the end of the treatment: it degrades safely in the intestine, so that a simple evacuation can expel it without any health consequences.
Since there is no surgery, not even endoscopic, for Elipse there is no need for anesthesia or other medical procedures: it is neither harmful nor painful to introduce it.
In Italy Elipse is produced by Levibio  , which also provides a list of doctors who perform this treatment, and which you can consult at this link.  The manufacturers assure that the cost of Elipse is lower than the endoscopic gastric balloon precisely because there are no operations to be done, only a medical examination.