The early symptoms that a hormone, leptin might lead to the discovery of effective and ingenious weight-loss drugs are now muddled. Still, few scientists remain positively hopeful. When leptin, the claimed fat-regulating hormone was firt discovered, researchers thought it might be the key to discover novel obesity-fighting drugs. But that was nearly 15 years ago. Till date, scientists are still trying to discover leptin-based weight-loss drugs and therapies.
The progress in the drug discovery has been very slow than actually anticipated. This is due to leptin’s effect on different biochemical pathways in the body. Researchers still can’t decide how exactly leptin works in controlling the biochemical pathways. Read on to know more about the waning promise of leptin in the obesity fight.
A Few Facts About Leptin
Leptin was first discovered in the mid-1990s by chance, when a few researchers noticed that mice carrying a mutated gene which contains the instructions to produce leptin became obese quickly. But when the mice was given specific doses of leptin, it rapidly lost weight.
Studies conducted in humans confirmed the fact that peptin doses can lead to weight loss. According to one study, 73 obese adults who were daily given 0.3 milligram of leptin injections for every kilogram of body weight nearly lost 15 pounds in 24 weeks. This study was published in the “Journal of the American Medical Association” in the year 1999. This study also revealed that the more the amount of leptin, better are the results. This hormone appeared to enhance weight-los but in a normal way.
Other Studies
But other studies complicated the scenario. According to a 1996 report published in the New England Journal of Medicine, obese people reportedly have higher levels of leptin when compared to leaner individuals. Hence, there is a major dispute regarding the effects of leptin in the fight against obesity.
