Recommended Posts

(CNN) -- A relatively obscure drug used to treat mouth sores has made obese mice thin -- and the mice didn't have to eat less or exercise more, according to a study at the University of Michigan.

Doctors at the university will begin studies in human beings later this year. Hopes are high, even though many drugs that work in mice do not work in humans.

"It is a tour de force and offers a new and potentially exciting opening for developments of new anti-obesity drugs -- something which is badly needed," says Dr. George Bray, chief of the Division of Clinical Obesity and Metabolism at Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University.

In the study at the University of Michigan, researchers gave mice a high-fat diet, and they became obese. They then injected the animals with a drug called amlexanox, which has been on the market for more than 15 years to treat canker sores. The mice lost weight, even though they kept eating the same number of calories. When they were taken off the drug, the mice gained all the weight back.

"It could well be that what works for one disease will turn out to work for another, even though that wasn't the original intent," he said.

more

In the study at the University of Michigan, researchers gave mice a high-fat diet, and they became obese. They then injected the animals with a drug called amlexanox, which has been on the market for more than 15 years to treat canker sores. The mice lost weight, even though they kept eating the same number of calories. When they were taken off the drug, the mice gained all the weight back.

Sounds like they need to start adding it to Big Macs and Coca Cola then.

It doesn't automatically make the user healthy though.

But could potentially help the seriously obese to drop enough so that they can start to exercise properly. I've seen plenty of people that are so large that exercise would be impossible for them.

  • Like 1
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Posts

    • That is $130 more than I paid for my 4TB a year ago. How is this a deal?
    • JetBrains' new AI-first 'IDE' JetBrains Air is now on Windows by David Uzondu JetBrains has announced that JetBrains Air, its Agentic Development Environment (ADE) is now available for download on Windows x64 and ARM. You might not be familiar with JetBrains Air. It's this new desktop app that the company launched back in March 2026 to let developers hand off tasks to AI agents instead of writing every line manually. You can see it as more of an Agentic Development Environment (ADE) rather than a traditional Integrated Development Environment (IDE). The latter builds its features around a central text editor, while the former arranges everything around the AI agent itself. Here's how JetBrains describes it: Air was born from the ashes of Fleet, an experimental editor that the company quietly killed in December 2025 after realizing that competing directly with VS Code was a losing battle. The company repurposed Fleet's lightweight, modern architecture to build Air, transforming a basic code editor into a workspace for running multiple AI agents. When Air launched, it was only available for macOS. It wasn't until earlier this month that Linux users got a chance to play with the software. Now that Air is on Windows, you can do things like map out a complex feature in Plan mode and watch an AI write the implementation plan to a markdown file before writing any code. You can iterate on this plan, add references to specific classes or files, and choose whether to run the agent locally or inside an isolated Git worktree. Running agents in parallel means you can have Claude refactor a database schema in one branch while Codex writes tests in another, leaving you free to do other important things. You can even set up a pipeline where Claude writes the code, and Codex reviews it. At the moment, Air is free. If you have a JetBrains AI Pro or Ultimate subscription, you get full access to the built-in agents, though there's also the option to Bring Your Own Key (BYOK) to run APIs from Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google. If you're interested, here are the download links for both x64 and ARM64.
    • Depending how you’re wiring it internally, but try to put it inside conduit, that way in the future you can more easily replace cables, compared to running inside studs alone At least cat6a too
    • I bet Meta has lots of info on you anyway, gathered by other means. And Google, and Microsoft, and every other tech giant. If you use some form of modern electronic device, they own you already...
  • Recent Achievements

    • Reacting Well
      NovaEdgeX earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Week One Done
      NovaEdgeX earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Year In
      BA the Curmudgeon earned a badge
      One Year In
    • Conversation Starter
      rosiecharles earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • First Post
      KMilenkoski1202 earned a badge
      First Post
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      530
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      264
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      149
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      98
    5. 5
      macoman
      60
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!