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Nature Medicine 14, 604 - 606 (2008)
doi:10.1038/nm0608-604

The long reach of leptin

Eleftheria Maratos-Flier1

  1. Division of Endocrinology, Beth-Isreal Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston Massachusetts, 02215, USA. e-mail: emaratos@bidmc.harvard.edu


The energy-regulating hormone leptin affects signals emerging from certain brain regions. New results explore the nature of these signals, finding a central role for phosphoinositide-3 kinase in the brain and the endocannabinoid system in adipocytes (pages 667–675).


Leptin, a circulating hormone derived from adipose tissue, has a crucial role in energy homeostasis, regulating energy intake, energy expenditure and energy partitioning—the flux of nutrients between organs and the conversion, storage and use of nutrients. This hormone induces changes in the brain that, in turn, affect energy homeostasis in other tissues, such as adipocytes.

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