Can feeding food to the blood directly prevent obesity, hypertension, and diabetes?

Hello,

Welcome to icliniq.com.

• It is great to know about your dream of becoming a doctor, and it is never too late. You can still give it a go as you are still pretty young by every means and age can never be a hurdle in education.

• Now coming to your query, the idea is good but not practical because of many reasons. You are talking about total parenteral nutrition, that is, TPN, giving all the nutrients through blood. This mode of nutrition is given in special cases only through a catheter, that is, a small tube-like structure implanted inside a blood vessel through which nutrients are infused directly in blood.

• But, this mode has many possible complications and hence is used only in those patients in whom oral feeding is not possible. It is not feasible to normal people because of many possible complications and unwanted effects as follows:

1. Feeling of extreme hunger: The brain gets signals from the taste buds, stomach, and other regions of the gastrointestinal tract, and not from the blood. So, if you give everything through blood, the brain will still send strong signals for eating food.
2. Disuse atrophy: When any organ is not in use for long, it undergoes atrophic changes. The same happens with the gastrointestinal tract if it is not fed regularly, which in turn can lead to many further diseases of the gastrointestinal tract.
3. Infections of the site where the catheter is implanted for giving nutrition directly to the blood.
4. Clot formation in the blood vessels where the catheter is placed.

• These are just a few of the many possible complications due to which it is not a good idea and practically not possible in normal individuals.

For more information consult an internal medicine physician online --> https://www.icliniq.com/ask-a-doctor-online/internal-medicine-physician