REVIEW ARTICLE

Obesity currently is qualified as a worldwide health epidemic and its consequences include diabetes mellitus as far as cardiac disease. Genetic and environmental factors contribute to obesity, although the genetic component is still poorly understood in hu-mans. With the cloning of mouse ob gene and its receptor, leptin was discovered, the “satiety hormone”. Leptin is expressed and secreted primarily by adipose tissue and is highly correlated to body fat mass. Nevertheless, many factors can regulate leptin synthe-sis and expression, such as fasting, sympathetic activity, insulin, exercise and changes in energy balance. Aerobic physical activity effects on leptin are still not very clear, seeing that there are con-tradictory studies about its effects on leptin regulation. Transversal studies suggest that leptin concentrations are not acutely affected after an exercise bout. However, reductions in leptin concentra