http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/stories/person/1665 Stories and external links referencing a person (RSS) en http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/appetite-hormone-restores-fertility <!--paging_filter--><p>A hormone called leptin has been trumpeted as an appetite suppressor and a possible treatment for obesity. New research shows that "a clear connection also exists between fat, or energy storage, and the ability to reproduce," says Corrine Welt, an assistant professor of medicine who works at Massachusetts General Hospital, a Harvard affiliate. The women whose fertility was boosted by leptin injections had stopped menstruating as a result of losing an abnormal amount of fat, mainly by overexercising. In their 20s and early 30s, they pared themselves down to carrying about 40 percent less fat than is average for women their age. Such loss of menses, or amenorrhea, is also associated with abnormal levels of thyroid hormones and a loss of bone mass, which can lead to brittle, easily fractured bones. The findings thus raise the possibilities of new treatments for exercise-induced bone loss and for eating disorders, as well as for certain cases of infertility.</p> Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:35:50 -0400 70652986 3512 at http://harvardscience.harvard.edu http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/leptin-serves-body-energy-signal <!--paging_filter--><p>Much leptin research in humans has focused on feasting rather than famine, but Christos Mantzoros's team, led by Jean Chan, a Harvard Medical School clinical fellow in medicine, took a different approach. <p>Mantzoros, lead author and HMS assistant professor of medicine at BIDMC, and his group studied eight healthy men to see how the changes in leptin induced by fasting regulated other neuroendocrine signals in normal humans.</p> <p><a href="http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/leptin-serves-body-energy-signal">read more</a></p> Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:21:00 -0400 70652986 3671 at http://harvardscience.harvard.edu