Can something so delicious affect your metabolism in such a positive manner as to allow a new look?

LeptiTrim6 is based on leptin, a weight loss molecule that researchers are learning plays a critical role in fat loss. Leptin is so named from the Greek “leptos,” which means thin. The hormone lives up to its name. The hunger hormone “has far-reaching physiological effects on both food intake and energy expenditure,” Dr. Steven Heymsfield, a professor of medicine at Columbia University in New York City, tells ABC News.

“Leptin is the key hormone involved with the storage of fat,” say Mastering Leptin authors Byron J. Richards, C.C.N., and Mary Guignon
Richards. “Problems with leptin center on the inability of the brain to properly perceive the hormone. When this happens, an individual
is prone to a metabolic rate that is stuck in slow motion and significant hypothyroid symptoms. All the while fat progressively accumulates in all
the wrong places.”

Meanwhile, in the area of clinical research, no less a publication than the Journal of the American Medical Association has reported on the leptin-weight loss connection. In a randomized, double blind, placebocontrolled, multicenter study, it was found that weight loss “increased with increasing doses of leptin among all subjects.” At the highest leptin dose, more than 95 percent of the subjects’ weight loss was from fat. No clinically significant adverse effects were observed on major organ systems.

“A dose-response relationship with weight and fat loss was observed,” the researchers say. “Based on this study, administration of exogenous
leptin appears to induce weight loss in some obese subjects . . .” Manufactured in the fat cells, leptin tells the brain whether the body has sufficient
energy stores, or fat. The hormone sends satiety signals to the hypothalamus—the brain’s eating control center— and tells us when we can stop
eating, says Dr. Julio Licinio, a professor of psychiatry and medicine at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine.

Dr. Licinio’s own recent dramatic study demonstrates how powerful leptin is to control our cravings for food. Almost everyone produces leptin—that is, almost everyone but for Bayrum Donsek, Elif Fakili, and Zeynep Fakili. These three from Turkey are the only known adults in the world to possess the genetic mutation that renders them leptin-deficient—and the consequences have been devastating, reports ABC News. “In the absence of leptin, the
brain never receives the message that the body has sufficient food, believing it to be in a constant state of starvation. For this reason, the family members have demonstrated voracious appetites, eating themselves up to weights ranging from 235 pounds to more than 300 pounds, yet
never feeling full.”

Dr. Licinio flew the relatives from their isolated village to the University of California, Los Angeles, to participate in clinical trials funded by the National Institutes of Health. Everyday for 10 months, the cousins received leptin injections while researchers tracked every system in their bodies to record the effects of the hormone injections. The results have been dramatic, says Dr. Licinio. So dramatic that the same individuals who required two seats each for their journey to America will soon return home in the regular one seat each. “The researchers did not instruct the subjects to eat more or less of
anything, but because leptin affects appetite,” explains Licinio

“In addition, leptin stimulates physical activity, so their activity levels increased as well,” continues Licinio. They began to slowly lose weight, and over time, the weight just kept dropping off—half of it gone in less than one year.