Obesity drug may prevent kidney stones

TOKYO: Japanese scientists have found that an experimental obesity drug can potentially prevent the formation of kidney stones in mice, a finding that paves the way to develop medications to prevent the condition in at-risk individuals. “This is an experimental work for now. We were able to analyse the biochemical differences between the control and experimental group, and discovered that the beta3-agonist reduced the expression of adipocytokine molecules, which are associated with inflammation,” said lead researcher Teruaki Sugino from the Nagoya City University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Japan.