Scripps Research Scientists Unveil Promising New Approach to Diabetes Prevention; Experimental Compound Protects Obese Mice from Diabetes-Like Metabolic Changes

A team of scientists from Scripps Research has conducted promising early tests of a new strategy that might one day be used to prevent or treat type 2 diabetes. The scientists, whose results were published online on February 1, 2022 in Nature Communications, tested an experimental compound called IXA4 in obese mice. They showed that the compound activates a natural signaling pathway that protects the animals from harmful, obesity-driven metabolic changes that would normally lead to diabetes. The open-access article is titled “Pharmacologic IRE1/XBP1s Activation Promotes Systemic Adaptive Remodeling in Obesity.”