Can Taking Leptin Supplements Help With Weight Loss?

Leptin is a hormone that plays a role in maintaining your normal body weight. Because increased leptin levels aren't necessarily associated with losing weight, taking leptin supplements likely won't help you lose weight.

Leptin is a hormone that plays a role in maintaining your normal body weight. It (and leptin supplements) helps regulate your hunger so that you feel full. Your weight can typically be directly correlated with how much leptin you have in your blood.

Hormones are chemical messengers that coordinate your bodily functions. They do this by traveling through your blood to your muscles, organs, and other tissues. 

The hormone leptin is released by your body fat to send a signal to your brain that you've had enough to eat. Since its discovery in 1994, leptin has helped researchers understand more about how obesity works and how to treat it.

Leptin works to help balance your body's food intake and energy expenditure. It affects your brainstem, hypothalamus gland, and other receptors in your body. When your leptin levels increase, your brain gets the message that you're full, so you don't eat as much. However, leptin isn't a quick-acting hormone. It doesn't affect your appetite from one meal to the next. Instead, it works to control your appetite levels long-term to help you maintain a stable weight. 

When you start to lose weight, though, leptin has a more dramatic effect. Your leptin levels decrease as you lose body fat. This increase tells your body you might be starving, so it stimulates your appetite.

People with obesity have higher levels of leptin than people with a normal body mass index (BMI). Even though they have high levels of leptin, though, their brains still tell them to eat more. Many people with obesity have leptin resistance, which means they aren't getting the satiety signals from leptin that tell them not to eat.

Researchers are still studying leptin, but they believe it also plays a role in your metabolism, which may affect your ability to lose weight.

Because increased leptin levels aren't necessarily associated with losing weight, taking leptin supplements likely won't help you lose weight. Most leptin supplements don't even contain leptin. They instead contain anti-inflammatory ingredients that may help reduce inflammation of your hypothalamus, which occurs with obesity. Reducing this inflammation may help increase your leptin sensitivity, but more research is needed to be sure.

People who were born with leptin deficiency and given leptin replacement therapy lost a significant amount of weight after 18 months. However, leptin deficiency is a very rare cause of obesity, and obese people who were given leptin as part of a study didn't show any weight loss.

Your leptin level can be tested with a blood test. Your doctor won't normally test your leptin level, though. Most doctors will only check leptin levels in people with obesity and persistent hunger or a child with class III obesity, which is a BMI of 40 or higher (or 35 or higher with obesity-related health conditions). 

Normal leptin levels vary. Look at your lab report to find the range of normal values. In general, normal values for leptin are: 

• Adults who were assigned female at birth: 0.5 to 15.2 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL)
• Adults who were assigned male at birth: 0.5 to 12.5 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL)

High Leptin Levels

A high leptin level is called hyperleptinemia. High levels of leptin can cause leptin resistance. Hyperleptinemia is consequently associated with the following conditions: 

• Obesity
• Depression
• Addiction to food
• Rabson–Mendenhall syndrome, a very rare genetic disorder
• Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease
• Neurodegenerative disorders, which are diseases that result from progressive damage to your cells and nervous system

Symptoms of leptin resistance are related to your body's decreased ability to suppress your appetite and expend more energy. They can include constantly feeling hungry and wanting to eat despite having enough or even having too much body fat. 

Leptin resistance isn't the only condition that can cause these symptoms, though. Researchers are still studying leptin and may discover more about leptin resistance in the future. 

Although taking leptin supplements has not yet been shown to have much of an effect on leptin resistance, there are some other ways you may be able to increase your leptin sensitivity: 

Increase your physical exercise

Although it's still not clear what role leptin has in physical exercise, studies have shown that exercise may be able to modify your body's leptin response and increase your leptin sensitivity. Regular exercise can also affect other hormones, such as insulin and cortisol, as well as triglycerides, which can affect how your body processes leptin. 

Get enough sleep

Sleep helps regulate all of your hormones. A study of sleep-deprived people found that they produced ghrelin, which is a hormone that signals hunger. They also had lower levels of leptin. The participant in the study reported increased hunger. 

Reduce your triglycerides levels

High triglycerides may increase leptin resistance and make it harder for leptin to cross the blood-brain barrier, which is a barrier that stops toxins from entering your brain. For leptin to work, it has to reach your brain. 

Triglycerides are a type of fat that's found in your blood. Your body converts calories you don't need immediately into triglycerides. High triglyceride levels, however, increase your risk of heart disease and stroke. 

You can lower your triglycerides by: 

• Exercising regularly
• Avoiding sugar and refined carbohydrates
• Losing weight if you're overweight
• Eating healthier fats, such as those found in plants
• Limiting the alcohol you drink