May 11, 2007 11:00 pm US/Eastern
Start Losing Weight By Visiting The Dentist
by Dr. Mallika Marshall
BOSTON (WBZ) ―
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The Charlie Bite is cemented to the teeth. If you open your mouth too wide, a hinged piece of metal comes down, preventing you from chewing until you lift back in place.
CBS
There may be a new option for the millions who have tried everything to lose weight and failed. It's a diet that promises to make you thinner without pills, meetings or special food.
This diet starts in the dentist chair.
Eat less and you'll lose weight. It's a simple concept, but it's hard when we're surrounded by temptations.
"If obesity were easy to treat, we wouldn't have 75 million adult Americans and 15 million children with obesity," said Mass. General Hospital Obesity Specialist Dr. Lee Kaplan.
But Laurel Thomas says, it easy. She's lost ten pounds using the "
Charlie Bite" -- a dental device that forces her to eat more slowly. "I came from a family that ate fast... I can eat really fast... But now I have to eat slow."
The device is named after it's inventor, Charlie Comstock, a Utah dental lab worker who believes diets are not enough to help people lose weight. "I thought that if we could come up with an appliance that would force them to slow down… Take smaller bites… They would probably lose weight faster."
The Charlie Bite is cemented to the teeth. If you open your mouth too wide, a hinged piece of metal comes down, preventing you from chewing until you lift back in place. The idea is to eat slower, so you feel full before you overdo it.
Kaplan says there's no way to know for sure if it works until it goes through controlled studies, but he says the idea may have merit. "Anything that has the potential of changing behavior is something that we should consider."
The inventor of the Charlie Bite is hoping dentists around the country will be willing to give it a try, so we brought it to the Boston University Dental School.
"When I first saw it," said one dentist, "I thought of a medieval torture device."
Dr. Victor Dietz says he's skeptical about whether patients would be able to tolerate the device. "What happens when you're asleep and you're on your side and you comp down on this? Could you do some damaged? Possibly."
Comstock insists the device is safe and it works. "If they are willing to come in wear it…wear it like we tell them to wear it…do what we tell them to do…the weight will come off."
That is a powerful promise to the millions of overweight Americans.
The Charlie Bite costs between $1,500 and $3,000 -- that includes weekly visits so the device can be removed, cleaned, and re-applied.
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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