‘Starving’ fat suppresses appetite

CINCINNATI -- Peptides that target blood vessels in fat and cause them to go into programmed cell death (termed apoptosis) could become a model for future weight-loss therapies, say University of Cincinnati (UC) researchers. read...

Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease associated with high mortality rates

Researchers from the Karolinska Institute determined that patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) have a higher overall mortality rate compared with the general population. Details of this study are available in the February issue of Hepatology, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American Association for the Study of Liver...

Envoy Enters Diabetes and Obesity Collaboration with Merck & Co., Inc.

Envoy Therapeutics, Inc. today announced that it has entered into a multi-year research collaboration agreement with an affiliate of Merck & Co., Inc. to discover novel diabetes and obesity drug targets. Under the agreement, Envoy will use its proprietary bacTRAP® technology to identify proteins expressed specifically in certain cell types. Merck will then work to identify and develop compounds that modulate protein targets with therapeutic potential for the treatment of metabolic...

Obesity ups cancer risk, and here’s how

Obesity comes with plenty of health risks, but there's one that's perhaps not so well known: an increased risk of developing cancer, and especially certain types of cancer like liver cancer. Now, a group of researchers reporting in the January 22nd issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication, have confirmed in mice that obesity does indeed act as a "bona fide tumor promoter." They also have good evidence to explain how that...