Leptin Could Tackle Type-2 Diabetes Mellitus

The appetite controlling hormone known as Leptin, might help keep the diabetes sufferers body from producing too much insulin, according to a study in mice with type-two diabetes.

Suferrers from type-2 diabetes mellitus commonly build up resistance to the effects of insulin, causing excess amounts to build up in the body.

Commenting in the September issue of the medical journal ‘Peptides’, diabetes specialists from the University of Florida injected a gene into the brains laboratory mice with diabetes, hoping to increase the production of the appetite-controlling hormone leptin in the hypothalamus.

Insulin levels in laboratory mice that were given gene therapy returned to normality, even when they were fed a elevated-fat diet, the medical experts found. Increased-fat diets often help trigger or exacerbate type-two diabetes.

Mice that ate a elevated-fat diet but did not receive gene therapy continued to overproduce insulin and have high glucose levels.