By the year 2025, an estimated 300 million people are expected to be categorized as obese (Bray). This increased intake of calories has caused a plethora of health issues, both physical and mental. Diabetes and obesity are major health issues that must be taken seriously, but too often it is shunted off to the side and condemned as a ‘lack of will’ by those it affects. A change in the perception of the disease, from purely the fault of the person who suffers from it to a “multifactorial disease with distinctive pathologic and pathophysiologic processes”, may help assuage the stigma and shame, and bring to light the health, societal and economic costs (Bray, G A, and J Macdiarmid). Hunger is the impulse to eat caused by falling glycogen levels in the liver. Your brain and your body are in constant communication, and there are 3 main hunger hormones to know; leptin, ghrelin, and neuropeptide Y. Since Obesity is most closely related to the amount of fat on the body, we will be focusing on Leptin. Leptin is secreted by adipose tissue (fat cells) and interacts with the hypothalamus, its main function is to regulate the amount of fat your body has. Leptin insensitivity/ leptin resistance is a defect in this pathway, either by leptin deficiency or an issue with neural receptors. In the study “A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila” by researchers Jennifer Beshel, Josh Dubnau, and Yi Zhong, it takes a look at how the genetically dysregulated leptin pathway causes obesity. In a surprising conclusion, it was found that the manipulation of the endogenous ligand for the domeless receptor upd1 causes the obesity phenotype in Drosophila (fruit flies) (Beshel). This dysfunction between the leptin analog in the fruit flies and its receptor leads to behaviors expressed by starved flies, even after feeding, which in turn leads to weight gain.
Bray, G A, and J Macdiarmid. “The Epidemic of Obesity.” The Western Journal of Medicine, Copyright 2000 BMJ Publishing Group, Feb. 2000, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1070754/.
Gunnars, Kris. “Leptin and Leptin Resistance: Everything You Need to Know.” Healthline, 4 Dec. 2018, www.healthline.com/nutrition/leptin-101.
Beshel, Jennifer, et al. “A Leptin Analog Locally Produced in the Brain Acts via a Conserved Neural Circuit to Modulate Obesity-Linked Behaviors in Drosophila.” Cell Metabolism, vol. 25, no. 1, 2017, pp. 208–217., DOI:10.1016/j.cmet.2016.12.013.
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