Longevity science

Researchers at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI) have discovered a hormone that holds promise for a dramatically more effective treatment of type 2 diabetes, a metabolic illness afflicting an estimated 26 million Americans.

The researchers believe that the hormone might also have a role in treating type 1, or juvenile, diabetes.

With health authorities saying the world is facing an obesity epidemic and with a recent major study finding that – for the first time – more people now die from obesity-related illnesses like heart attacks and strokes than malnutrition, scientists have been tackling the fat problem.

Recent approaches to this problem include looking at ways to slow down the biological clock and converting calorie-storing white fat cells into heat-generating brown fat cells. Now, a new study has found that linking two hormones into a single molecule could lead to improved treatments for medical conditions such as obesity.