Leaping after Leptin to Cure Obesity

Abstract

O kay, it is month into the new year, and your resolve (0 lose weight has gone right out the window. The chocolate 00slaught that accompanies Valenrine's Day has begun, so you decide it is okay to hold onto your belly bulge bit longer-maybe until Easter Bunny season is over. Millions of orher people in the United Stares will make the same decision, quite possibly to rheir detriment. At least rhird of the adults in the United Stares carry around 20% oe more weight than ehe actuarial ideal, and most do not mitigate rhe heft by heaving themselves around the block on regular basis. How much of the problem is genetie and how much hideous health habits is subject of constant debate, but public health officials and researchers agree that obesity is the most eommon nutritional disorder in wesrernized societies. The Institute of Medieine has gone so far as to label it chronic disease. With obesity often comes heart disease, hypertension, and non-. insulin-dependent diaberes mellirus (NIDDM), also known as adultonset, or type 11, diabetes. Ellior Danforth, professor emeritus ar the University of Vermont and an independent eonsultant in the obesity field, deseribes obesity as a foundation disease . He believes that if the spread of obesiry eould be reversed, we could slow the things that will eventually kill us. Even though no gene has yet been tied unequivocally to run-of-the-mill