Research
Hormonal
In typical obesity, elevated leptin levels fail to suppress appetite or increase energy expenditure due to leptin resistance, and high-fat diets can exacerbate this resistance.
In common obesity, your body produces high levels of leptin, but your brain stops listening to it. This is called leptin resistance. It means you won't feel full or burn more energy just because you have more fat tissue. High-fat diets can make this resistance worse.
StrongRefutesVERY_HIGH confidence
obese individuals do not show diminished appetite and increased energy expenditure, as would be predicted based on their increased leptin levels... high-fat diet–induced hyperleptinemia aggravates weight gain and metabolic anomalies
Why this rating
Consistent observation across human and animal models cited.
Source
Sixteen years and counting: an update on leptin in energy balance
Laurent Gautron et al. · Journal of Clinical Investigation · 2011
DOI 10.1172/jci45888
narrative_reviewCited 367×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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