Leptin Therapy Could Hold Key To Long-Term Weight Loss

Main Category: Obesity / Weight Loss / Fitness
Also Included In: Endocrinology;  HIV / AIDS
Article Date: 19 Jan 2010 - 2:00 PDT

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Hormone Helps to Regulate Energy Homeostasis, Neuroendocrine Function, and Metabolism

Leptin is a hormone that plays a central role in fat metabolism. Patients with genetic leptin deficiency are obese, and treatment with leptin leads to dramatic weight loss through decreased food intake and possible increased energy expenditure. However, most obese people who produce leptin normally are resistant to the weight-loss effects of the hormone. Leptin deficiency is a clinical syndrome associated with distinct conditions such as recent weight loss, diet- or exercise-induced hypothalamic amenorrhea, and lipoatrophy.

Recombinant human leptin is an emerging potential therapy for these leptin-deficient conditions because in replacement doses, it normalizes energy homeostasis, neuroendocrine function, and metabolism.

Replacement of leptin in physiologic doses may help people who have recently lost weight because relative leptin deficiency may drive them to eat more, expend less energy, and regain weight. Leptin also restores ovulatory menstruation in women with hypothalalmic amenorrhea and improves metabolic dysfunction in patients with lipoatrophy, including lipoatrophy associated with HIV or highly active antiretroviral therapy.

Annals of Internal Medicine Jan. 19, 2010

Source: Angela Collom
American College of Physicians

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