LEPTIN, a hormone that suppresses appetite, may have a pivotal role in sexual
development, say researchers in France.
Donny Strosberg and his colleagues at the Denis Diderot University in Paris
report in Nature Genetics (vol 18, p 213) their discovery of a Turkish
family in which some members are unable to secrete the hormone into their
blood-stream. The reason appears to be a mutation on both copies of their leptin
gene.
These individuals are also obese. And in addition, one of the family members,
a 22-year-old man, has not yet reached puberty. The researchers intend to test
the theory that leptin treatment will complete his sexual development.
