Colleen Williams

At a Glance Monogenic obesity can result from rare mutations in the leptin gene usually resulting in congenital leptin deficiency  which can be treated with the human leptin analogon metreleptin. Recently young children have presented with severe obesity and typical signs of leptin deficiency and high leptin levels, which is unusual, which led researchers to discover mutated leptin which was secreted but was bioinactive since it did not bind to receptors as it should.

Several recent studies have highlighted the importance of lean muscle mass versus the dangers of fat mass in children and adolescents — and suggest that adolescence could be a particularly important time to interrupt an individual’s trend toward the morbidities associated with obesity. Studies often rely on body mass index (BMI) alone as a measure of obesity, but BMI can be misleading because it does not differentiate lean mass from fat mass, according to Andrew O.