New research may prove pivotal in the battle against obesity.
It was conducted at Trinity College Dublin, St. Vincent’s Hospital and Harvard University in the US.
Its found that a type of anti-tumour immune cell protects against obesity and the metabolic syndrome that leads to diabetes.
The team also discovered that a lipid called “aGC” can lead to a dramatic improvement in metabolism, weight loss, and fatty liver disease and can reverse diabetes by bolstering cells that have been depleted.
The results show that immune cells that known to be protective against malignancy that are lost when people become obese can be restored through weight loss.
The research has been published online in the journal Immunity.
These invariant natural killer T-cells (iNKT) had been thought to be rare in humans until work found they were plentiful in human omental fat.
Dr. Lydia Lynch is from Trinity College Dublin.
“We then found a large population of iNKT cells in fat tissue from mice” she said.
“Now we have identified a role for these cells in the regulation of body weight and the metabolic state, likely by regulating inflammation in adipose tissue” she added.
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