Researchers in Cambridge, Mass., found a link between metabolic and immunologic conditions, they said in papers published Sunday in the journal Nature Medicine.

They used two over-the-counter allergy medications to reduce both obesity and type 2 diabetes in mice. The papers explained the medications stabilize a population of inflammatory immune cells called mast cells.

The researchers also found a white blood cell called a regulatory T cell controls inflammation in fat tissues. Obese people and people with type 2 diabetes have too few of these cells, the papers said.

"It seems that we're seeing the emergence of a new biomedical discipline: immunometabolism," said Harvard Medical School Professor of pathology Diane Mathis, senior author on one of the papers.

Scientists know type 1 diabetes is an immunological disease but didn't consider type 2 to be immunological until this study, the Harvard scientists said.