The study also discovered that rats, which ran six to eight times less, neither running nor leptin alone kept the weight from accumulating. Giving the rats leptin actually caused them to gain more weight than eating a high-fat diet alone,
“ This is a startling finding. Leptin is expected to reduce body weight, not promote weight and fat gain,” said Scarpace.
He added that obese rats that ran and took leptin kept the extra weight off.
Christopher Morrison, Ph.D., an assistant professor at the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre at Louisiana State University said that the finding has potential to help combat obesity in humans.
However, scientists also believe that further studies are needed to understand exactly why this combination works.
The study appears in journal Diabetes.
Source-ANI
SPH