Obesity: Reviving The Promise Of Leptin
Tuesday, January 6, 2009 - 16:14
in Health & Medicine
The 1995 discovery of leptin, an appetite-suppressing hormone, generated great hopes for an effective obesity drug. But hopes dimmed when it was found that obese people are leptin-resistant. Now, researchers have, for the first time, re-sensitized the brain to leptin, using oral drugs that are already FDA-approved. In mice, this led to significant weight loss when combined with leptin treatment.