An international review has reported that elderly people with diabetes who contract COVID-19 are at a much higher risk of dying from the disease and the virus may actually trigger the onset of diabetes in normally healthy people. Authored by an international panel of experts in the field of diabetes, they came together to provide guidance and practical recommendations for the management of diabetes for clinicians in both developed and developing countries.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research in Cologne, Germany, have discovered that a group of nerve cells in the brains of mice promotes the consumption of high-fat food. If these so-called nociceptin neurons in the hypothalamus are activated, the animals start to eat more. The findings, ‘PNOCARC Neurons Promote Hyperphagia and Obesity upon High-Fat-Diet Feeding’, were published in the journal Neuron.

Adolescent obesity is a serious and growing public health problem that threatens both current and future health outcomes, according to an editorial by Drs Leonard H Epstein (SUNY Distinguished Professor and Division Chief of Behavioral Medicine in the Department of Pediatrics in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at University at Buffalo (UB)) and Teresa Quattrin (a UB Distinguished Professor and senior associate dean for research integration in the Jacobs School).

A study led by Yale Cancer Center (YCC) researchers has demonstrated in mice that hormones released from the pancreas itself can advance pancreatic cancer and that weight loss can stop this process in its early stages. Pancreatic cancer is expected to become the second-deadliest cancer in the US by 2030, driven in part by rising obesity rates. The research, ‘Endocrine-Exocrine Signaling Drives Obesity-Associated Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma’, was published in the journal Cell.

A meta-analysis designed to determine the hierarchies of different bariatric surgeries in patients with obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), has reported that one anastomosis (mini) gastric bypass (OAGB/MGB) is more likely to achieve diabetes remission compared with other bariatric surgeries. However, biliopancreatic diversion without duodenal switch (BPD) appears to be the most effective surgery for achieving long‐term diabetes remission.