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Enlarge Image Resistance isn't futile. Immune cells called basophils help prevent ticks from drinking their fill of blood Credit: Thinkstock Rare in the body and hard to study, immune cells called basophils have long gotten short shrift from researchers. But a study now shows that basophils help repel bloodthirsty ticks that can spread lethal diseases. The work also introduces a new method for teasing out further immune functions of the often-overlooked cells. Many animals develop some resistance to ticks the first time the parasites feast on their blood. During later feedings, fewer ticks latch on to resistant animals, and...

Researchers searching for a cure for obesity said on Thursday they have developed a drug that not only makes mice lose weight, but reverses diabetes and lowers their cholesterol, too. The drug, which they have dubbed fatostatin, stops the body from making fat, instead releasing the energy from food. They hope it may lead to a pill that would fight obesity, diabetes and cholesterol, all at once. Writing in the journal Chemistry and Biology, Salih Wakil of Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, Motonari Uesugi of Kyoto University in Japan and colleagues said the drug interferes with a suite of...

Supposedly preoccupied with costs and how to reduce them, the various committees involved in producing health care legislation have all but ignored the, well, husky animal in the room: fat people. With an epidemic of obesity enlarging the country, Congress — like many Americans blithely ignoring the gradual tightening of their waistbands — is in denial. Why? The answer, by some accounts, is astoundingly simple: No one wants to tell Americans the bad news. “The inability we have to address this issue head-on is because we’re uncomfortable with the reason people are overweight,” said Christine Ferguson, professor of health policy...

Animal study shows over-the-counter medications lower weight and treat type 2 diabetes Over-the-counter allergy medications turn obese, diabetic mice into healthy, normal-weight mice, researchers report. The new research focuses on mast cells, immune system players critical to the inflammatory response involved in allergies. The study appears along with three other independent studies in the July 26 online Nature Medicine that show a connection between type 2 diabetes and the immune system. “Certainly the study is very exciting,” says George King of Harvard University’s Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, who was not involved in the research. “It’s the first type to...

(Ivanhoe Newswire) — Crack open the latest medical textbook to the chapter on type 2 diabetes and you'll be hard pressed to find the term "immunology" anywhere. Metabolic conditions and immunologic conditions are, with a few exceptions, thought to be distant cousins. Recent studies, however, two of which are from Harvard Medical School researchers, have linked type 2 diabetes with immunology in a way that might persuade researchers to start viewing them as siblings. Type 1 and type 2 diabetes both involve abnormalities in the insulin-producing beta cells of the pancreas, but their root causes are completely different. Type 1...