Abstract

FARINAS RODRIGUEZ, Lucía et al. Food and leptin control. Rev Cubana Invest Bioméd [online]. 2005, vol.24, n.1, pp. 47-53. ISSN 1561-3011.

The latest knowledge about the role of leptin and its ways of action in the central nervous system, as well as its relation with other signs that are also involved in the maintenance of body weight, were stressed. Obesity has become the  epidemic with the highest increase in the last two decades. It is estimated that 28 % of the US citizens and 20 % of the Europeans are obese, and many others are overweight. This entity is closely related to health problems, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and hypertension, among others. That’s why it is so  important the understanding of all the physiological, biochemical and behavioral processes taking part in it. A great advance has been observed in the mechanisms involved in the establishment of obesity since the discovery of the obese gen and its genic product, leptin, which gives information to the CNS about the energy state, modifying nutrition and energy homeostasis, one of the three processes interrelated in the appearance of obesity

Keywords : Leptin; obesity; neuropeptide Y; food control.

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