-Excerpt from an article I read, thought I’d share…link below*
Picture a morbidly obese mouse, you know, the ones companies use to show as the “before” picture when marketing certain products. Anyhow, let’s call him Jumbo. Jumbo is unique – he’s an ob/ob mouse. This is a mouse that becomes a type II diabetic, can’t stop eating, and packs away body fat like crazy. No matter how much you feed him, he won’t stop.
Poor Jumbo has a mutation in the gene coding for leptin – he’s totally missing it! His fat cells can’t properly communicate with his hypothalamus because he has no leptin. If you inject Jumbo with leptin, he’ll stop eating and lose weight, but the solution isn’t so simple for us non-mutants. Most obese people don’t have missing or mutated leptin genes – they can make plenty of it. The problem is that in spite of leptin still finding and binding its receptors all over the body, no downstream message is sent. The system that senses leptin is broken.
This is called leptin resistance, a condition in which the brain can’t determine when body fat is at an okay level. The fat cells are sending leptin out to the hypothalamus to signal that fat stores are full. Leptin binds the receptors, but no downstream messages are sent. It’s like knocking on the door when nobody is home. In spite of all the extra body fat mass, the brain perceives starvation and orders fat storage. The kicker is that you’re also very hungry, and continue to eat more and more.
If you know anyone who just can’t stop eating like Jumbo, as tempting as it may be to instantly judge them, it’s likely not entirely their fault. Many obese people have metabolic systems that are simply broken. You can’t outrun Mother Nature, and if the leptin signaling is messed up, you can only control yourself so much.
For full article by John Meadows CSCS check out: <http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/control_leptin_and_control_your_leanness&cr=>