Battling bulge can often be a frustrating fight—with tedious calorie counting, rigorous exercise regimens, and invasive and expensive stomach-shrinking surgeries. But a new method to offload the flab promises to be a quick and simple treatment that cuts cravings and leads to sustainable weight loss.

The non-surgical procedure works using tiny, injectable beads that restrict blood flow to the part of the stomach that releases the hunger-sparking hormone, ghrelin. In a pilot clinical trial with seven severely obese patients, the method successfully curbed hunger and trimmed an average of 13.3 percent of excess weight after six months.

Though the clinical data is still preliminary and in a small number of patients, doctors are hopeful that the method, called bariatric arterial embolization (BAE), will be a safe and effective tool for slashing obesity numbers. "These early results demonstrate that BAE appears to be effective in helping patients lose a significant amount of weight in the short and intermediate term," lead author Clifford Weiss, associate professor of radiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a statement. Weiss and colleagues presented the clinical results so far at the Society of Interventional Radiology's 2016 Annual Scientific Meeting in Vancouver.

Unlike bariatric surgeries, BAE requires minimal nicks and fuss. A wee catheter is simply inserted into an artery in the wrist or groin and then fed into the body until it hits the top of the stomach—an area called the fundus. This part of the stomach produces the majority of ghrelin in the body. Through the catheter, doctors then inject microscopic beads that clog up the blood vessels, restricting flow and knocking back ghrelin production.

The seven obese patients in the trial, which had body mass indexes ranging from 40 to 60 (a BMI of 30 is considered obese), reported significantly lower appetites in the first two weeks. In the first three months, their bodies were making an average of 17.5 percent less ghrelin than prior to the procedure.

During the six-month trial, the participant showed sustained and continual weight loss. At one, three, and six months, the participant lost an average of 5.9, 9.5, and 13.3 percent of excess body weight, respectively.

Next, the researchers will expand the trial to more obese patients and assess the cost savings compared with standard gastric surgeries.