Weight-loss fad using tongue patches makes eating painful

By staff writers

NEWS.com.au

September 22, 2009 12:45pm

A small postage stamp-sized patch is surgically attached to your tongue, making it painful and difficult to eat.

A DRASTIC new weight-loss fad has set tongues wagging in California, though not necessarily from any desire to spread the news of its miraculous benefits.

The “Chugay Tongue Patch” produces a “means of weight loss never before offered by other surgeons”, according to the Chugay Cosmetic Surgery website.

The “patch” is a mesh square about the size of a postage stamp, which, when surgically attached to the tongue, makes eating “very difficult and painful”.

“I’d say the Chugay Tongue Patch is a daily reminder of how just because your physician has an MD behind their name it doesn’t mean they’re bright,” Canadian obesity doctor Yoni Freedhoff told the Chicago Tribune.

The pain from the patch limits users to a liquid diet, causing patients to lose up to 13kg in the month-long program.

During that time, patients were put on a liquid diet that “fulfilled their nutritional needs”.

The Chugay website said 10 people in California had so far subjected themselves to the radical treatment.

The patients “were typically able to return to work the following day” after surgery.