Leptin which suppresses hunger could be the way to beat obesity

Feb 26 2008

Australian scientists say a hormone that suppresses hunger may be far more powerful when it comes to weight loss than first thought.

The scientists from Monash University's Department of Physiology in Melbourne have discovered that the hormone, leptin has a larger role in burning energy in the human body than was previously thought.

They say their findings will re-open the debate on the potential of the appetite suppressant.

Leptin is produced by fat and acts on the brain to reduce appetite and increase energy use through a process called thermogenesis.

In this way it helps regulate appetite, controlling how much a person feels like eating and offers a huge potential as a therapy to fight obesity.

It was first discovered in the 1990s, but trials using injections of leptin have resulted in weight loss success in rats but not in humans.

The Monash team have however discovered that not does leptin triggers thermogenesis in a small number of fat cells, but it also triggers the same response in muscle tissue, which makes up more than one third of body mass.

The researchers, Dr. Belinda Henry and Professor Iain Clarke say this has significant repercussion for the development of weight loss strategies.

They say that drugs which mimic leptin could trick the body into weight loss by simply harnessing the body's natural process of thermogenesis.

Dr. Henry says now that they have shown leptin increases energy utilisation in muscle tissue, the potential for the hormone to have a positive impact has been greatly magnified.

She believes it will now be possible to recreate and enhance this natural process for the purposes of assisting weight loss and use leptin to increase the rate people burn calories so they can beat obesity.

Professor Clarke says the challenge will be to trick the brain into triggering the response, as the hormone leptin is already higher in overweight people and the impact of the hormone is somehow reduced in the human body.

Henry says the university is now working with an American team to test a chemical mimicking leptin in animals to determine if weight loss drugs could be developed.

She suggests that if the process can be manipulated it may be possible to burn more energy and prevent the energy being stored as fat tissue.

The research is published in the journal Endocrinology.