The potential benefits of weight loss surgery are no secret. Nor are the implications and side effects of the procedures themselves, which involve the reduction of the stomach to a pouch the size of an egg, or inserting a constrictive band to achieve the same end. Now, Harvard researchers may be on to a promising new and less invasive way to treat obesity – by simply blocking a particular blood vessel leading into the stomach. Interestingly enough, the procedure itself is nothing new. Called transarterial embolization, it is a common treatment in which a doctor goes in through a blood vessel and injects tiny beads or coils to block this artery, usually to slow or stop problematic bleeding in the gastrointestinal tract.