Leptin: How Diabetes and Obesity Are Linked

Leptin is the way that your body fat speaks to your brain to let your brain know how much energy is available and, very importantly, what to do with it. Studies have shown that leptin plays significant if not primary roles in heart disease, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, autoimmune diseases, reproductive disorders, and perhaps the rate of aging itself. Many chronic diseases are now linked to excess inflammation such as heart disease and diabetes. High leptin levels are very pro-inflammatory, and leptin also helps to mediate the manufacture of other very potent inflammatory chemicals from fat cells that also play a significant role in the progression of heart disease and diabetes.
Leptin plays a far more important role in your health than, for instance, cholesterol, however few doctors are taught to pay attention to it, or even know much about it. Leptin's critical importance is largely unknown to the medical community because there are no know drugs that regulate its activities and therefore there is no incentive to spend money to educate doctors about leptin's critical role in health and disease. The only known way to reestablish proper leptin (and insulin) signaling is via diet and, as such, there can have a more profound effect on your health than any other know modality of medical treatment.
Many studies have shown that the brain and liver are of paramount importance in regulating your blood sugar levels especially in type 2 or insulin resistant diabetes. It had been previously believed that the insulin sensitivity of muscle and fat tissues are the most important factor in determining whether one would become diabetic or not. It should be noted that leptin plays a vital role in regulating your brain's hypothalamic activity which regulates much of your "autonomic" functions: those functions that you don't necessarily think about but which determines much of your life and health such as:

Body temperature
Heart rate
Hunger
Stress response
Fat burning or storage
Reproductive behavior and
Newly discovered roles in bone growth and BLOOD SUGAR LEVELS

Past studies have also show the complexity of hormonal orchestration. Especially with very important hormones like insulin and leptin with far ranging effects, a particular cell can be resistant to one effect while the other stays intact. For instance, it had been shown previously that cells may become resistant to the effects of insulin on glucose influx (which may be protective in limiting the amount of glucose entering cells and thus intracellular glycation), while that same cell may not become resistant to the effects if insulin on cellular proliferation that tell cells to multiply, as these are mediated by two separate pathways.
THUS A PERSON WITH HIGH INSULIN LEVELS, BEING INSULIN RESISTANT IN REGARDS TO GLUCOSE, WOULD STILL BE AT A MUCH HIGHER RISK OF CANCER, AND THIS INDEED IS WHAT HAPPENS: HIGH INSULIN LEVELS ARE ASSOCIATED WITH MANY COMMON FORMS OF CANCER. ALSO, DIFFERENT ORGAN SYSTEMS BECOME RESISTANT AT DIFFERENT RATES. THEREFORE, JUST TAKING OR ARTIFICIALLY RAISING (BY DRUGS) INSULIN, AND/OR LEPTIN, WILL NOT CORRECT THE PROBLEMS IN THE ORCHESTRATION OF THE SIGNALS, ANY MORE THAN PLAYING THE TUBA LOUDER WILL FIX MISTAKES IN THE WRITTEN MUSIC.
A DIET THAT EMPHASIZES GOOD FATS AND AVOIDS BLOOD SUGAR SPIKES COUPLED WITH TARGETED SUPPLEMENTS TO ENHANCE INSULIN AND LEPTIN SENSITIVITY SUCH AS THE ROSEDALE DIET WILL INCREASE YOUR CELL'S ABILITY TO HEAR HORMONAL MESSAGES CORRECTLY.
The above article was from a lecture by Dr. Ron Rosedale, who is an expert on leptin physiology. We will have more on the role of leptin in the future as it takes a little while to fully comprehend the important role of leptin in good health.