New pharmacological perspectives for the leptin receptor in the treatment of obesity

Abstract

After its discovery in 1994, leptin became the great hope as an anti-obesity reatment based on its ability to reduce food intake and increase energy expenditure. owever, treating obese people with exogenous leptin was unsuccessful in most cases ince most of them present already high circulating leptin levels to which they do not espond anymore defining the so-called state of "leptin resistance". Indeed, leptin herapy is unsuccessful to lower body weight in commonly obese people but effective in eople with rare single gene mutations of the leptin gene. Consequently, treatment of bese people with leptin was given less attention and the focus of obesity research hifted towards the prevention and reversal of the state of leptin resistance. Many of hese new promising approaches aim to restore or sensitize the impaired function of the eptin receptor by pharmacological means. The current review will focus on the ifferent emerging therapeutic strategies in obesity research that are related to eptin and its receptor.