The invention provides for means for a method to facilitate food intake and food retention in a mammal by applying a sufficient dose of a local anesthetic drug in the lumen of the pharyngeal-esophageal-gastric-duodenal tract before or during or after eating. The local anesthetic can be amethocaine, ar-ticaine, benzocaine, bupivacaine, chloroprocaine, cinchocaine, cyclomethycaine, dibucaine, diethocaine, etidocaine, laro-caine, levobupivacaine, lidocaine, lignocaine, mepivacaine, novocaine, piperocaine, prilocaine, procaine, proparacaine, propoxycaine, QX-222, QX-314, ropivacaine, tetracaine, trimecaine, menthol, eugenol or a safe pharmaceutical formulations of tetrodotoxin, saxitoxin, or neosaxitoxin. The invention is useful for patients having problems with food intake or food retention.
MEANS TO FACILITATE FOOD INTAKE AND FOOD RETENTION