TB’s links to diabetes
As the global obesity epidemic grows, researchers are looking worriedly at burgeoning rates of diabetes — a top risk factor for tuberculosis — and wondering if the number of TB cases will rise, too. Though infectious diseases such as tuberculosis are often thought of as being fundamentally different from chronic diseases related to lifestyle, such as diabetes and heart disease, a growing body of research indicates that the two are tied together in ways not completely understood but likely related to the body’s immune response and the metabolic effects of fat tissue. Researchers gathered at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT in Cambridge last Thursday to share insights into those links and to foster collaboration that might help unravel what’s happening. “The No. 1 risk factor for TB globally is not HIV, it’s diabetes,” said Sarah Fortune, the Harvard School of Public Health’s (HSPH) Melvin J. and Geraldine L. Glimcher Associate Professor...