To lose weight, two things to try: - juicing : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat,_Sick_and_Nearly_Dead
- banning corn syrup, which means junk food and pretty much all manufactured food these days : "Sugar: The Bitter Truth " www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

It's too bad they don't have a crowd-funding tool for research like this. I bet this one would be one of the projects that got blasted with donations. I can think of at least ten people I know who would gladly donate to this as they have been staring down the barrel of gastric surgery due to the utter failure of exercise and diet to effect weight loss.

Hmmmm- 20 percent means that for every 50 lbs. you'd lose by lap-band surgery, you could possibly lose up to 10 lbs. by this method - at least until your body re-adjusts to its 'natural' microbial balance, and you yoyo right back. Nope, there just ain't no substitute for informed self-control - and reasonable exercise.

Elephants and other animals will sometimes eat their droppings in order to re-establish the normal intestinal biota.

@ Freyr Gunnar, and all of the rest who commented earlier.
I take it that none of you have never had an obesity problem. I’m 6 feet 3 inches tall (190.5 cm.) and weigh in at 400 lbs (181.4 Kg.) I was at 468 lbs. (212.3 kg.) at one time. I’ve tried exercise, eating healthy and cutting out surgar’s and sugary products. IT IS NOT AN EASY THING TO LOSE WEIGHT. If this procedure will work on humans I’m all for it. I’d love to be at about one-half the weight I am now.
Some of the suggestions I’ve read here are both offensive, rude and down right non-sensitive. Try wearing a bag with a bunch of bowling balls in them that double your weight and see how easy it is to try and do anything.

Or you could get off you butt and get active and eat right. I astounds me how many people are still looking for that miracle weight loss trend that will allow them to continue to eat processed foods and sit on their ass all day. I losses over 50 pounds by eating fresh food I prepared and mountain biking. A health diet and exercise works every time all the time, you just cant be lazy about it.

@JMOdom
Right on man, well said!
@ everyone else So high fructose corn syrup is the only cause for obesity? Explain buddha.

Many years ago the US Army did a test where they took healthy people and made one third eat normally as the control group, one third overeat, and one third under-eat. The group that overate gained an average of 50 pounds no matter how many excess calories consumed and when they went back to normal food consumption they lost the extra weight. The group that under-ate lost weight consistent with observed mass hunger events which include that a 20% reduction in calorie intake results in weight loss and a slowed metabolism that resulted in a 5-10 pound weight gain over their pretest weight upon returning to normal eating. The control group remained normal throughout.
The conclusion is that Anybody that is more than 75pounds overweight the cause is not overeating.

re; Bob Humbly
The obesity epidemic started at the same time as the introduction of high fructose corn syrup, and is not affecting nations that have banned high fructose corn syrup.
Also synthetic low calorie sweeteners link to gaining weight.

Alternatively, overweight people could try eating less food and doing more exercise. What a crazy idea!