If you are trying to lose weight, then you should know about leptin, an important molecule. It is a hormone that the fat cells discharge, and their major function is to balance your energy and your body weight. This is accomplished in two ways: 1) by sending signals to your brain when you should stop eating and 2) by triggering fatty tissue to burn off energy.
You would think that the more fat you have, the more leptin your body will release into the blood and you would expect that it will annul your hunger and turn on your metabolism. This would be the case if leptin functioned correctly. However, most of the obese people have developed leptin resistance.
What is leptin resistance — and how does it happen?
If there is high amount of leptin in the body for a long period of time, it can lose the sensitivity to this hormone. The brain will stop responding to these useful cues to stop eating or to speed up the metabolism.
This will make it even harder for the body to shed weight and maintain the metabolism at an appropriate and healthy level. People with leptin resistance usually have belly fat and experience inflammations more than others, and this increases the risk of a number of chronic illnesses such as osteoporosis, arthritis, diabetes and heart disease.
Some crash diets also can contribute to this condition. People make mistake when reduce the number of calories dramatically, because the body then enters the starvation mode and the reduced leptin levels tell the brain that it needs food. Thus, the body does not spend energy as usual and the metabolic levels are also reduced. This means that the body starts hoarding fat.
That is why rigorous diets are not good and derail efforts for losing weight. Also, some processed foods can lead to leptin resistance, including:
- Foods high in sugar
- Foods too high in fat
- High fructose corn syrup
- Refined carbohydrates
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