Role of leptin present in maternal milk in the control of energy balance during the post-natal period
Leptin is a hormone mainly produced by the adipose tissue , but also by the stomach [2, 3, 4], placenta [5, 6] and mammary epithelial cells . The stomach can produce and store leptin and release it in response to food intake [3, 4, 8]. Also leptin is produced by the placenta and potentially plays a role in fetal and neonatal growth. Leptin is present in maternal milk and this leptin could be absorbed by the immature gastric mucosa of neonatal rats [9, 10]. Previous results of our laboratory show that during the first 15 days of life, maternal milk-borne leptin is the main source of gastric leptin and the increase of endogenous leptin expression in the stomach of neonates is related to the change of diet from milk to a solid chow diet .
The biological role of milk-borne leptin is not known. Neither is the biological role of milk-borne leptin or its implication in post-neonatal development known. However, there is large epidemiological evidence that food during early life does...
KeywordsOral leptin Lactation Milk Short-term control of food intake Early life nutrition
This work was supported by the Spanish Government (grants G03/028, BFI2003-04439 and AGL2004-07496/ALI). Our Laboratory is member of the European Research Network of Excellence NuGO (The European Nutrigenomics Organization, EU Contract: n° FP6-506360).