New prospects for the treatment of obesity - Leptin and the discovery of anti-obesity drugs -

Obesity is a typical multifactorial disease that results from complex interactions between hereditary predisposition and environmental factors, making it extremely difficult to approach from a molecular level. At the end of 1994, an obese gene product, leptin, was discovered, and, since then, obesity research has produced a variety of new findings. Leptin is secreted from the adipose tissue and to act directly on the hypothalamus, causing appetite suppression and accelerated energy metabolism, thereby denoting a relationship to obesity and weight gain. A number of hypothalamic appetite regulators have been found, and it has recently become apparent that many of these regulators are controlled by leptin. In contrast, many genes that are known to cause human obesity and to develop from single-gene mutations regulate energy metabolism by leptin, and they have attracted attention as possible anti-obesity drugs. This paper outlines new anti-obesity drug research and development that have emerged since the discovery of leptin.