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Leptin: Hormone for Fat Regulation & Skin Care

Leptin (Greek meaning leptos) is a protein hormone that helps to regulate metabolism, body weight and reproductive function. I just read a story by Dr. Mercola who I absolutely love since he’s into more organic foods and natural ways to take care of your body. He’s also anti-vaccination due to the wicked amounts and different types of ingredients that make up this hodge-podge of products injected into humans but that’s another story. Anyway, leptin as one site explains, “is expressed predominantly by adipocytes, which fits with the idea that body weight is sensed as the total mass of fat in the body. Smaller amounts of leptin are also secreted by cells in the epithelium of the stomach and in the placenta. Leptin receptors are highly expressed in areas of the hypothalamus known to be important in regulating body weight, as well as in T lymphocytes and vascular endothelial cells.”

Leptin functioning was observed in the 1950’s by studying mutant obese mice. It was discovered in 1994 by Jeffrey Friedman and collegues via a colony of obese mice. Per Wiki, this is a biomarker for body fat as well as a way to measure individual energy levels via testing leptin in the serum. It also states that although the obese mice had little or no leptin, obese people typically have too much leptin.

Leptin plays a big role in many facets of the body but another component is aging. As Dr. Mercola’s article points out, “Leptin appears to play a significant role in obesity, heart disease, osteoporosis, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory diseases and cancer. These are the so-called “chronic diseases of aging“.

“To sum up a complex process very simply, the hormones your fat cells produce impact how much you eat and how much fat you burn.

One of these hormones is leptin, and leptin sends signals that reduce hunger, increase fat burning and reduce fat storage. That is, if your cells are communicating properly and can “hear” this message.

If you are eating a diet that is high in sugar and grains — this is the same type of diet that will also increase inflammation in your body — as the sugar gets metabolized in fat cells, fat releases surges in leptin. Over time, if your body is exposed to too much leptin, it will become resistant to the leptin (just as your body can become resistant to insulin).

When you become leptin-resistant, your body can no longer hear the messages telling it to stop eating and burn fat — so it remains hungry and stores more fat.

Leptin-resistance also causes an increase in visceral fat, sending you on a vicious cycle of hunger, fat storage and an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and more.”

From what I can gather, fish oil might be the source of leptin but it appears that research is on-going.

This product claims to be a skin strenthening complex repair cream: http://www.loveyourlook.com/NIA24/repair.aspx and its key ingredient has “5% Pro-Niacin allows for conversion of nicotinic acid into NAD, which plays a central role in energy metabolism. NAD helps repair, promotes skin cell generation and stimulates the release of leptin. “

The Skinstore.com website has 12~ reviews on various skin products from this company which were overall pretty good but it costs $85 for 1.7 ounces. The ingredients do show olive oil:

Ingredients:
Water (Aqua), Hydrogenated Polyisobutene, Myristyl Nicotinate, Cyclopentasiloxane, Olea Europaea (Olive) Fruit Oil, Cyclomethicone, Squalane, Butylene Glycol, Dimethicone, C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate, Glyceryl Stearate SE, Cetyl Alcohol Glycerin, Polyacrylamide, Pyrus Malus (Apple) Fruit Extract, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Glycine Soja (Soybean) Seed Extract, Juglans Regia (Walnut) Seed Extract, Rosmarinus Officinalis (Rosemary) Leaf Extract, Camellia Sinensis (Green Tea) Leaf Extract, Oenothera Biennis (Evening Primrose) Oil, Triticum Vulgare (Wheat) Germ Oil, Carthamus Tinctorius (Safflower) Seed Oil, Pentadecalactone, Methyldihydrojasmonate, Dodecahydro-3a,6,6,9atetramethylnaphtho( 2,1-b)furan, Myristica Fragrans (Nutmeg) Kernel Extract, Maltol, Ceramide 3,Retinyl Palmitate (Vitamin A Palmitate), Sodium Hyaluronate, Ceramide 2, PEG-8, Phospholipids, Tribehenin, PEG-10 Rapeseed Sterol, Palmitoyl Oligopeptide, Dimethicone Crosspolymer-3,BHT, Laureth-7, C13-14 Isoparaffin, Polysorbate 60, Diazolidinyl Urea, Iodopropynyl Butylcarbamate,Methylparaben,Propylparaben

Amazon.com users (24 in all) gave the Skin Strengthening product 4.5 stars out of 5.0 with one negative user giving a rating in spite of not using it.

I’m going to try it and will post the results after awhile. Anyone else try it?

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