Endocrine Abstracts

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Whilst the recent rise in the prevalence of obesity has been driven in part by environmental factors, there is considerable evidence from twin and adoption studies that body weight and fat mass are highly heritable traits and differences in susceptibility to obesity have strong genetic determinants. The identification of patients with mutations in the gene encoding the adipocyte-derived hormone leptin, and their successful treatment with recombinant human leptin, have provided...

Three independent studies identified SNPs in the first intron of the gene FTO as being strongly and consistently associated with BMI and/or obesity at significance levels (P=10−7 to P=10−30) unobserved so far in genetics of obesity. The three studies estimated the putative effect around 1% of the total variance of BMI. So far, this represents the strongest effect for a common variant in obesity.This result ...

Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is an incretin hormone with potent glucose-dependent insulinotropic and glucagonostatic actions. The glucose dependency of its antihyperglycaemic effects minimize any risk of hypoglycaemia. In higher concentrations GLP-1 slows gastric emptying and reduces appetite and food intake, resulting in weight loss. Taken together these actions give GLP-1 an unigue profile as an antidiabetic agents. Since GLP-1 is highly susceptible to enzymatic degradati...