After its discovery in 1994,
leptin became the great hope as an anti-
obesity treatment based on its ability to reduce food intake and increase energy expenditure. However, treating obese people with exogenous
leptin was unsuccessful in most cases since most of them present already high circulating
leptin levels to which they do not respond anymore defining the so-called state of "
leptin resistance." Indeed,
leptin therapy is unsuccessful to lower
body weight in commonly obese people but effective in people with rare single gene mutations of the
leptin gene. Consequently, treatment of obese people with
leptin was given less attention and the focus of
obesity research shifted toward the prevention and reversal of the state of
leptin resistance. Many of these new promising approaches aim to restore or sensitize the impaired function of the
leptin receptor by pharmacological means. The current review will focus on the different emerging therapeutic strategies in
obesity research that are related to
leptin and its receptor.