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Sydney:
A hormone like leptin could hold the key to why and how people
pile on pounds.
Our bodies secrete leptin in response to increasing fat deposits,
said Tony Tiganis, professor in biochemistry at the Monash
University's Obesity and Diabetes Institute.
"Leptin instructs the body to increase energy expenditure and
decrease food intake, and so helps us maintain a healthy body
weight," said Tiganis, who led the study.
"The body's response to leptin is diminished in overweight and
obese individuals, giving rise to the concept of 'leptin-resistance',"
said Tiganis, the journal Cell Metabolism reports.
Two proteins are already known to inhibit leptin in the brain.
Tiganis' team have discovered a third, according to a Monash
statement.
In mice, this third protein becomes more abundant with
weight-gain, exacerbating leptin-resistance and hastening
progression to morbid obesity.
The study showed that these three proteins that regulate leptin
take effect at different stages, shedding light on how obesity
progresses.
High fat diet-induced weight gain is largely prevented in
engineered mice when two of these proteins are deleted in the
brain, the study suggested.
"We now have to determine what happens when all three negative
regulators are neutralised. Do we prevent high fat diet-induced
obesity?
"Humans have a deep-seated attraction to overeating and
nutrient-rich food, inherited from our hunter-gatherer ancestors.
Now that food is more readily available and our lifestyles are
less active, our evolutionary drive to overeat is becoming
problematic," said Tiganis.
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