Equation Proposes Patterns of Weight Gain and Loss

Energy Equation Proposes Patterns of Weight Gain and Loss

Adding Leptin Resistance to Model of Mouse Metabolism Results in High- and Low-weight Stable States

Controlling body weight is a simple matter of balancing how much you eat against how much you burn, right? For some, maybe, but HMS researchers have devised a mathematical model of energy balance and body weight that suggests a more complicated equation

Graham Ramsay

From left, Rakesh Jain, Joshua Tam, and Dai Fukumura developed a mathematical model representing leptin’s regulation of body weight.

The model predicts that mice susceptible to developing resistance to the metabolic regulator leptin have multiple stable body weights. Simulated mice based on the model grow obese after overeating, eventually hitting a high stable weight. But losing this weight and returning to a lower stable weight can be extraordinarily difficult. Though the model blends two competing theories of body weight, it departs from their predictions that body weight gravitates to one stable weight or weight range. If the model proves correct, it may point to new interventions to help ease weight loss even in the most intractable cases.