“FOR THE PAST 10 years, I was constantly dieting,” says Jessica Alderman, an accountant in Florida. In a quest to slim down, the 36-year-old tried calorie reduction, food-tracking apps, meal replacement shakes, and numerous workout plans. Yet despite her best efforts, she couldn’t seem to lose weight permanently. “With dieting, you’re so hungry and miserable,” she says. “It’s hard to get past the first two weeks. I’d just quit.”
That’s why she volunteered for a pilot study at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, where interventional radiologist J. David Prologo, M.D., has pioneered the use of cryovagotomy—the freezing of the vagus nerve, which signals to the brain that the body needs to eat. Among overweight or obese people, he says, this nerve causes the body to overreact to an…
