Review: The Role of Hyperleptinemia in Chronic Degenerative Diseases

Leptin is a protein that belongs to the family of cytokines, it’s mainly produced by adipose tissue and its main function is to inform the nervous system about the amount of such tissue present in the organism, it also participates in the regulation of the neuroendocrine function and in the control of food intake; however, this molecule can also act in other tissues because their receptors are present in them. It has been identified that abnormal values of this protein can lead to have or aggravate some pathologies, such as cardiovascular, inflammatory, cancer, etc; since leptin is considered as a hormone that has proliferative, mitogenic, antiapoptotic and proinflammatory activity. Hyperleptinemia is a condition presented when leptin levels are above the normal level in the bloodstream (1-15 ng/ml) usually caused by physiological disorders such as obesity. Hyperleptinemia has been associated with several chronic degenerative diseases, where it has a strong relationship with the molecular basis of these diseases, either by direct action on the tissue or by its chemotactic ability to attract other molecules involved in the development of the disease. Because of these, abnormal levels of leptin in the body can be considered as a marker of disease, as described in this review.