Leptin hormone
Blood test Leptin from serum.
This hormone was therefore originally seen as a "hunger hormone". The more leptin that circulates in the blood, the more satiated one feels. The hormone is mainly secreted by white adipose tissue, but recently it has also been shown to be produced in other parts of the body. Many functions of leptin have been described, including energy-regulating effects and its involvement in inflammatory reactions.
In Jinek (2 May 2020) Peter van der Voort, head of the Intensive Care Unit of the UMC Groningen, told about his findings. One of the substances made by belly fat is leptin. In corona patients in the ICU it turned out to be too high.
Normally overweight people already have more leptin, but corona ensures that there is even more in your blood, Van der Voort discovered. The main effect of leptin is to make you feel less hungry, but it also has a number of side effects, including thrombosis. "And that is also what we see in our patients in intensive care. That there is more thrombosis in the veins, but also in the arteries."
The connection has yet to be demonstrated, but according to Van der Voort there are many indications that leptin plays an important role in the course of corona disease. The next question is: can anything be done about this? That is what Van der Voort now wants to investigate.
With too high values of Leptin we see:
- inflammations
- reduced sense of smell
- delayed gastric emptying
- ACE2 and AT2 receptor imbalance
- Leptin resistance
He suspects that the dietary supplement resveratrol may offer a solution
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According to studies, leptin is also involved in other functions such as fertility, the immune system, bone metabolism and angiogenesis. (Angiogenesis is the formation of new blood vessels from existing blood vessels
)Permanently elevated leptin levels in obese patients can be seen as a sign of leptin resistance. Leptin is then unable to regulate appetite sufficiently.
A therapeutic benefit of leptin has been demonstrated in obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus. In obese children with abnormally increased appetite, a significant decrease in body weight and food intake was found. These children had a genetically determined leptin deficiency Furthermore, the marked effect of leptin in patients with severe lipatrophic diabetes mellitus is known. One study showed that administration of leptin alone leads to a drastic reduction in insulin resistance in this special form of diabetes mellitus.
Method: EIA Reference values
: 3.7 - 11.1 ng/ml
An elevated value indicates (partial) Leptin resistance
