The Developmental Roles of Leptin and Ghrelin: Mammalian Comparisons
Human metabolism is programmed during the gestation and the first two years of postnatal life. The reasons for this are rooted in our evolutionary history. This metabolic programming influences our risk of obesity and other chronic diseases, and the hormones leptin and ghrelin may play an important role both in our early development and later disease risk. Our understanding of the roles of leptin and ghrelin in human appetites and disease risk are constantly improving, but there is still a need to understand how our evolutionary history has influenced those roles. This project will compare studies in rodents and non-human primates with human studies in order to explore how human evolution and the roles of leptin and ghrelin in human development may be linked.
