Research

Hormonal

Circulating levels of the ob protein (leptin) and ob mRNA expression in adipose tissue are directly regulated by the state of energy stores, increasing with obesity and decreasing with starvation.

This research confirms that your body produces more of this fat-regulating hormone as you gain weight, not less. This suggests that obesity involves a resistance to this signal rather than a simple deficiency. Therefore, simply taking this hormone as a supplement is unlikely to be effective for weight loss in obese individuals, as the body's response to it is already elevated.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
These data support the hypothesis that expression of ob mRNA and protein are regulated as a function of energy stores, and that ob serves as a circulating feedback signal to sites involved in regulation of energy homeostasis.
Robert Frederich et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 1995

Why this rating

Strong experimental evidence across multiple rodent models (ob/ob, db/db, MSG, UCP-DTA) and physiological states (fasting/refeeding).

Source

Expression of ob mRNA and its encoded protein in rodents. Impact of nutrition and obesity.

Robert Frederich et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 1995

DOI 10.1172/jci118206

mechanism_onlyCited 562×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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