At last - the chip that makes you thinner

Today may be April Fool’s Day but the news that there’s now a chip that can make you lose weight (Hallelujah!) broke, quite appropriately, on Good Friday – so it must be true...

In fact I think any practical jokes have sadly passed me by today. April Fool’s Day jokes can only be told before noon, and I usually rely on Radio 4 to liven my April 1^st  with a few. But it’s Easter Monday today, and we were late waking up. 

When I put the radio on, it was already 8.50am, and, though the last two stories on the Today show were bizarre, they were not too bizarre to be true. An app that allows trainspotters to point their phone at a train to scan a barcode sounds boringly plausible – and a phone that you shout at, instead of typing into, is, according to my daughter, already available...

But the chip that helps you lose weight... Now that really does sound too good to be true.

We were heading for Devon to visit my mother, who’d be breaking her lent, when we heard the news. And, this being just the kind of story any health writer loves, I turned the volume right up.

It turns out – no surprise – that the chip is not one that you fry or oven bake. You don’t even get to eat it. It is – of course – a microchip, and the idea is that will release a chemical that suppresses your appetite, curbing cravings and keeping overeating under control.

Not yet available – though the developers hope it will be in the next few years – it is set to be more effective than gastric bands, which owe their high failure rate to the fact that, even with a band, you can still manage to squeeze down small but highly calorific foods and unlimited quantities of fattening fizzy drinks.

I have always felt extremely sorry for anyone doomed to life post-band. Because, as we all know, so much joy comes from food.

So I love the idea that those who need to lose weight will still be able to tickle their palates with gourmet treats, yet be genuinely satisfied with tiny portions.

And, by preventing us from wanting to eat so much, this new little bit of technology has the potential to solve both our obesity epidemic and the looming food crisis. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. I can’t wait to see how it pans out!