Research
Hormonal
Leptin regulates body weight and energy expenditure by acting as a negative feedback signal from adipose tissue to the brain, inhibiting food intake and stimulating energy expenditure via hypothalamic pathways involving NPY, CRH, and the melanocortin system.
Understand that your body has a biological thermostat for fat stores (leptin). In obesity, this signal is often resistant, meaning high levels of the hormone don't effectively tell the brain to stop eating. This is a physiological barrier, not just a lack of willpower, explaining why weight loss is difficult despite high caloric intake.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
correction of leptin deficiency in ob/ob mice causes a marked reduction in food intake and a normalization of the obesity syndrome... leptin as a negative feedback signal critical to the normal control of food intake and body weight.
Why this rating
Based on a comprehensive review of multiple studies including gene cloning, animal models, and human correlations.
Source
Leptin: physiology and pathophysiology
Gema Frühbeck et al. · Clinical Physiology · 1998
DOI 10.1046/j.1365-2281.1998.00129.x
narrative_reviewCited 254×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Obese individuals typically exhibit high circulating leptin levels (hyperleptinaemia) due to increased fat mass, yet fail to lose weight, indicating a state of leptin resistance rather than deficiency.Good
- Exercise alone, independent of fat mass loss, has little to no effect on serum leptin levels in humans, as leptin primarily reflects adipose tissue mass rather than acute energy expenditure.Moderate
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