Obesity And Type 2 Diabetes
(From Boston.com). The link between obesity and age-related (type 2) diabetes has long been known: "The researchers, from Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, discovered a genetic 'master switch' in the liver that is turned on when people become obese. ... this switch produces low-level inflammation, which disrupts the body's ability to process insulin, causing type 2 diabetes." As usual, understanding allows potential therapies to be explored quite rapidly. "Reasoning that aspirin-like drugs are used to quell inflammation, they successfully used the drugs, called salicylates, to eliminate the symptoms of type 2 diabetes in mice. Human tests are already underway in Boston, though no results have been published." The best therapy is, of course, a lifestyle that avoids obesity in the first place.