Short answer, overall not signifiantly. More complicated answer is that in some individuals in the obese population, leptin might help with the return of normal weights.
Leptin is a hormone that is secreted by fat cells in your body that signal for the brain to have a decrease in appetite. Because of this, abnormal production of this hormone has been associated with obese individuals.
Specifically in the body, leptin interacts with specialized leptin receptors to inhibit excess feeding. In obese individuals though we see very highly elevated levels of this hormone. So why isn’t it working?
Well, in the typical Western high-fat diet, both rodents and humans have shown in various studies to demonstrate a non-response to leptin. This is a problem for being able to use leptin as a weight-loss hormone, as the already high levels of this hormone in obese individuals are already having no effect.
But, that doesn’t mean that looking into further uses for leptin aren’t going to prove beneficial. Although many obese individuals have high levels of leptin, there is about 10% of obese individuals that have very low levels of leptin instead.
In these individuals, there is potential therapies akin to insulin treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes in the form of leptin therapy. In these individuals with truly low levels of leptin, this therapy has shown to induce a sustained increase in weight loss.
This is good news to show that although leptin therapy is not for everyone, if you are overweight or obese it might be well worth it to go get a check up to view your blood-leptin levels to see if this is a potential reason for your obesity.
Can Leptin Prevent the Obesity Epidemic?
