You might have heard of slimming coffee, that coffee spiked up with a hormone called leptin. You also may have heard that leptin is a miracle weight loss cure that will make you lose weight without any effort.
Although leptin is indeed related to weight loss, appetite control and metabolism, it isn’t a “miracle cure” so much as one factor in the weight loss equation. How does leptin work to help you lose weight and what can you do to help your body out? Here are some tips and information.
A natural hormone
Leptin is a hormone naturally produced by the fat cells in our bodies. The fatter you are, the more leptin your body produces. Leptin sends a signal to your brain to tell it that your body doesn’t need food anymore—in other words, it controls satiety.
If your leptin levels go very low—if you lose a lot of weight quickly, go on a strict diet or become anorexic, for example—your body goes into starvation mode. In starvation mode, your body stores all the energy it can into fat.
Leptin resistance
Because of today’s abundance of food, most people have developed leptin resistance. Leptin resistance causes the brain to ignore the signal of satiety sent by leptin, thus making us feel hungry even when we’re really full.
Leptin and weight
So what happens with our leptin when we gain or lose weight? Some research has shown that in people who lose weight, the leptin levels also fall. When we regain the weight after a diet, our leptin levels rise with the weight. People with lower leptin levels are less at risk of “rebound” weight gain after a diet.
Can leptin supplements help?
Well, in some extreme cases, they are the only solution to weight loss. A tiny fraction of the world’s population comes with an inability to produce leptin, which causes obesity from overeating. In one of these rare cases, leptin injections reduced the weight dramatically and significantly.
However, the great majority of the population does produce leptin naturally, and leptin supplements are not necessarily useful to lose weight. Because overweight people produce more leptin, introducing more leptin in the body isn’t going to help with weight loss.
However, leptin-control supplements can help control the levels of leptin and stimulate the sensation of satiety that the brain should naturally receive under normal circumstances.
Other factors
Leptin levels are also determined by stress (cortisol levels can affect leptin), sleep patterns, exercise and food.
Through proper supplementation, lifestyle, exercise and diet, it’s possible to optimize the leptin function of the body to help the brain receive the satiety signals that leptin naturally sends. There is no miracle solution to obesity; losing weight isn’t as easy as getting a boob job. However, when we understand the many factors involved in weight control, we are better equipped to lose weight faster and to keep it off for good. Consult a doctor or nutritionist for all the information you need about leptin for weight loss and appetite control.
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