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Are ghrelin and leptin available as supplements?

On Wednesday, February 13, 2019

No. Companies marketing leptin or ghrelin supplements don’t actually have any of the hormones in the pill but rather compounds that are purported to increase or decrease the hormone levels and affect appetite. The Food and Drug Administration would likely ban any supplements that contain the hormones leptin and ghrelin, just as it has banned anabolic hormones in supplements.

Leptin and ghrelin are two hormones that have been recognized to have a major influence on energy balance. Leptin is a mediator of long-term regulation of energy balance, suppressing food intake and thereby inducing weight loss. Ghrelin on the other hand is a fast-acting hormone that increases hunger. Researchers believed that people (specifically obese individuals) were deficient in leptin; however, further research showed that leptin is made by fat tissue and the more you have, the more leptin you made. Leptin resistance has been discovered in obese people therefore it's generally useless to give them a leptin hormone treatment.

As for ghrelin, it is thought that if you block this hormone, it would help you lose weight. However what researchers discovered is that ghrelin is low in obese subjects, which should lead to weight loss. To date, researchers are still not clear on the everyday role ghrelin or leptin plays on appetite and weight control.

If you are looking for supplemental help for weight loss try incorporating meal replacements into your daily diet by using once or twice daily within your allotted calorie intake. In all studies, meal replacements (MR) have been shown to be an extremely effective aid to weight reduction and in almost all cases more effective than conventional methods of dietary restrictions. Additionally, meal replacements have been shown to be just as effective as dietary restriction combined with pharmacological therapy. And most importantly, continuous use of meal replacements may be the most effective means of all treatments when it comes to maintaining weight loss. Go to the dotFIT program for your recomendation.