Scientists find new way to manage inflammation, obesity

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In a new study from Trinity College Dublin, researchers found how specific immune cells can work together in fat to cause inflammation that leads to weight gain and obesity.

Their work pinpoints new ways to exploit the regulation of that inflammation in fat tissue, thereby suggesting new ways to manage obesity.

There is a global epidemic in obesity in adults and children, with obese people predisposed to develop diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. New therapies are needed to help tackle this issue.

In the study, the team found how “checkpoint proteins” and immune cells alter inflammatory cells within the fat tissue to cause obesity.

In people with obesity (Body Mass Index BMI> 30 kg/m²) these changes in checkpoint expression in the visceral fat were predictive of the person’s weight.

The scientists then showed that modifications in the so-called immune checkpoint proteins of mice on a Western “high fat” diet were linked to dramatic reductions in the development of obesity and diabetes.

The team says this new process of checkpoint regulation of cells in visceral fat of obese individuals advances the understanding of how the immune system controls diet-induced weight gain that can lead to conditions such as obesity and type 2 diabetes.

The discovery has broader impacts on addressing how obesity influences co-morbidity with other diseases, as shown in the COVID-19 pandemic, where obese individuals that are infected with SARS-CoV-2 are more likely to develop a severe disease that requires intensive care and also have an increased risk of mortality.

If you care about inflammation, please read studies about the cause of severe inflammation in COVID-19, and Aspirin and other drugs for inflammation could help prevent COVID-19 deaths.

For more information about health, please see recent studies about dieting method that can effectively reduce inflammation, and results showing that inflammation may actually slow down cognitive decline in older people.

The study is published in Science Translational Medicine and was conducted by Professor Padraic Fallon et al.

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