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The virus that causes COVID-19 undertakes a massive takeover of the body's fat-processing system, creating cellular storehouses of fat that empower the virus to hijack the body's molecular machinery and cause disease. After scientists discovered the important role of fat for SARS-CoV-2, they used weight-loss drugs and other fat-targeting compounds to try to stop the virus in cell culture. Cut off from its fatty fuel, the virus stopped replicating within 48 hours. The team embarked on the study based on observations that people with a high body-mass index and conditions like cardiovascular disease and diabetes are more sensitive to the...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal health advisers voted Monday to recommend over-the-counter sales of a weight-loss pill now sold only with a prescription. GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare still needs final Food and Drug Administration approval before it can sell a nonprescription version of orlistat, a diet pill already marketed in prescription form as Xenical. The FDA approved the prescription version of the fat-blocking pill made by Roche in 1999. A joint FDA advisory committee voted 11-3 to recommend approval late Monday after a daylong hearing. The agency usually follows the recommendations of its outside panels of experts, but its final decision could...

FINDINGS Researchers reported three cases of severe liver problems yesterday, including one death, in patients at a North Carolina hospital after they began taking a novel antibiotic. The Food and Drug Administration said it was reviewing an unknown number of cases involving the drug, telithromycin, marketed as Ketek, and consulting with counterparts overseas. The FDA approved the drug in 2004. One patient at Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte died after taking telithromycin. Another required and received a liver transplant, while the third recovered from drug-induced hepatitis after treatment with Ketek was stopped. --snip-- Oral Cancer Study False, Journal Says The...