Auto-Regulation of Leptin Neurobiology

The clinical use of the hormone leptin, a key regulator of food intake, to treat the most common instances of obesity has so far failed. In this issue, Zhao et al. (2019) report that, paradoxically, reducing leptin levels in obese mice increases their sensitivity to the concentrations that remain, and leads to reductions in weight gain, thus suggesting why these earlier trials may have failed and possibly a new approach to treating obesity.