In search of better treatments for type 2 diabetes and other consequences of obesity, Taku Kambayashi has long wondered if he could harness a bodily function that most people think about in a very different context: the immune system. There was evidence to suggest this approach might work, as certain types of immune cells were known to play a role in metabolism.
But when he and University of Pennsylvania colleagues stimulated these cells in a series of experiments on obese mice, they got a surprise. Not only did the animals become healthier in terms of their blood-glucose levels and other metabolic “markers,” they also lost dramatic amounts of weight.
