الفهرس 
Material and methodsOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Leptin is a 16-kilo dalton protein that is encoded by ob-gene and secreted by adipocytes. In humans leptin circulate in the blood in free and bound forms. It crosses the blood brain barrier by a saturable transport mechanism binds to its receptor in the hypothalamus and exerts its actions by restraining the synthesis and release of neuropeptide y from the hypothalamic nuclei ultimately causing anorexia, stimulating thermogenesis and increasing metabolism.
The major secretogogues being cytokines (particularly tumour necrosis factor a and interleukin), corticosteroids and insulin. Because the levels of these secretogogues are increased in cirrhosis (a condition frequently associated with hypermetabolism and altered body composition) we hypothesized that leptin levels may be increased in cirrhosis and be involved in malnutrition that frequently occur in this disease.
Accumulating evidence suggests that, like other cytokines, leptin has diverse and complex metabolic effects.
The aim of this work is to study serum leptin level in chronic liver disease, including liver cirrhosis of various etiology and fatty liver.
The study was carried out on 40 subjects divided into 3 groups : Group 1 : 10 healthy subjects as control group.
Group 2 : 25 patients with liver cirrhosis.
Group 3 : 5 patients with fatty liver.
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Summary
For each subject the following was done :
•Full history and clinical examination.
•Anthropometric measurements including height, weight, and B.M.I.
•Liver function tests, hepatitis marker, renal function tests, urine and
stool aualysis, blood sugar, cholesterol and triglecyride.
•Abd U/S.
•Serum leptin by ELISA method. The results were as follows :
•Serum leptin was significantly higher in cirrhotic group and fatty liver _J group in relation to control.
J• Serum leptin is significantly correlated to B.M.I in control and fatty
liver groups but not cirrhotic group owing to the presence of ascites and oedema lower limb.
•Serum leptin is significantly related to Child’s classification in liver cirrhosis group.
•Serum leptin has not correlated with serum albumin, serum bilirubin, or serum amino transferases, in liver cirrhosis ,group and control
group. But in fatty liver group there was only direct correlation with a liver enzymes.
•Serum leptin was significantly correlated with serum total cholesterol in fatty liver and control group but not in cirrhotic group.
•Serum leptin was significantly correlated with • prothrombin concentration in cirrhotic group but not fatty liver or control group.
•The serum leptin was not significantly correlated to the viral aetiology - of liver cirrhosis. This needs a large scale study to confirm the result.
•The cause of increased serum leptin in cirrhosis remains to be determined by further studies.