How leptin, the ‘satiety hormone,’ reverses diabetes

Treatment with leptin, the hormone associated with fullness or satiety, reverses hyperglycemia in animals models of poorly controlled type 1 (T1D) and type 2 (T2D) diabetes by suppressing the neuroendocrine pathways that cause blood glucose levels to soar, a Yale-led team of researchers has found. The study appears in the Advance Online Publication of Nature Medicine.

The leptin hormone regulates metabolism, appetite, and body weight. The researchers discovered that, in a fasting state, rats with poorly controlled T1D and T2D diabetes had lower plasma insulin and leptin concentrations and large increases in concentrations of plasma corticosterone—a stress hormone made in the adrenal glands that raises levels of blood glucose.

The researchers then found that normalizing plasma leptin concentrations in the T1D rats with a leptin infusion resulted in marked reductions in plasma glucose concentrations, which could mostly be attributed to reduction in rates of liver conversion of…