How to get obese mice moving -- and cure their diabetes
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 - 11:42
in Biology & Nature
Mice lacking the fat hormone leptin or the ability to respond to it become morbidly obese and severely diabetic -not to mention downright sluggish. Now, a new study in the June Cell Metabolism shows that blood sugar control in those animals can be completely restored by returning leptin sensitivity to a single class of neurons in the brain, which account for only a small fraction of those that normally carry the hormone receptors.