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Bodyweight Regulation: Leptin and More

For decades there has been a lot of debate over the idea that bodyweight is regulated.   Decades of research suggests that there is a biological setpoint although others feel that a bodyweight settling point is a more accurate description of the system.  Likely both play a role.

An additional question is whether it is bodyweight or body fat that is being regulated.  Likely both play some sort of a role.  However, inasmuch as body fat levels tend to be the most impacted by a diet, it makes sense that a primary signal to the brain of what was going on would reside in the body fat.  The question then became what it was or even might be.

It would be decades later that the answer, or at least a partial answer would become apparent.  That answer was leptin.

The Eventual Discovery of Leptin

With early research (I’m talking the 1950’s) having established the existence of some type of setpoint (again, primarily in animal models), early researchers had to sort of guess what might be going on in terms of regulating body fat levels.… Keep Reading