According to researchers from Harvard Medical School, a common non-prescription allergy medication could be used to treat metabolic conditions – including type 2 diabetes and obesity .
The papers, included in the Nature’s Medicine show, indicate a link between the immune system, obesity and type 2 diabetes . Experts in two studies tested the allergy drug on obese mice to reach their conclusions. The anti-inflammatory effects of the medication were found to be effective in treating their conditions.
At this stage, the diabetes research needs further human trials to ascertain how the allergy medication will affect human subjects. In the future, this could be an important treatment pathway for obesity and type 2 diabetes .
Type 2 diabetes and obesity are strongly associated, and hundreds of thousands of people in the UK have pre-diabetes – metabolic syndrome that increases diabetes development risk .