Change in Leptin as a Predictor of Satiety With High Protein Feeding

Detailed Summary

Body weight can be affected by the content of fat and carbohydrate in the diet. On average, people will lose a modest (\< 5 kg) amount of weight when switched from a high fat diet to a low fat, high carbohydrate diet. Determining mechanisms whereby changing the makeup of the diet can change one's body weight will be important in understanding why body weight in the US population is trending upward recently and what health care providers can recommend to reverse this trend. Previous studies have shown that increasing the carbohydrate and lowering the fat content in the diet leads to a change in the appearance of the hormone leptin in the blood over 24 hours. Leptin is an important signal from the fat cell to the brain that leads to a reduction in appetite and weight loss. A previous study found that after keeping people's weight stable, that the greater rise in leptin over the day on a low fat-high carbohydrate diet compared to a high fat diet predicted the reduction in calories they ate over a subsequent 12 weeks when their weight was allowed to freely fluctuate. Recent studies have also provided evidence that limiting fat and increasing the amount of protein in the diet also leads to modest weight loss. It is therefore proposed to test whether low fat, high protein diets also result a change in leptin secretion, and if this change predicts a reduction in appetite when they are allowed to eat freely.

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