According to a new study shedding weight may be easier since researchers have found that combining the hormone leptin with one of two US-approved drugs resulted in plump mice rapidly losing pounds.

The study researchers said the hormone leptin which was first discovered 13 years ago, signals the brain to stop eating once the stomach is full but this does not work perfectly in most overweight people.

Umut Ozcan, an endocrinologist at Children's Hospital in Boston, Mass., and senior author of the study published today in the journal Cell Metabolism said, "Leptin is a protein secreted from the adipocytes (fat cells). When fat cells release this hormone, it travels to an area [in the brain] called the hypothalamus," which controls appetite. When leptin goes to knock on the door [to try to deliver its message to the neurons in the hypothalamus], they don't respond," Ozcan says. This triggers a feeling of constant hunger, causing people to overeat, leading to even greater leptin resistance: "It becomes a vicious cycle," he says.

The researchers reported that the two drugs classified as "chemical chaperones," Phenyl Butyric Acid (PBA) and Tauroursodeoxycholic acid (TUDCA), already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seemed in mice to act as 'leptin sensitisers,'  combating 'leptin resistance' in the brain's hypothalamus. 'The results presented in this study provide evidence that chemical chaperones, particularly the PBA and TUDCA, can be used as leptin-sensitizing agents,' said Ozcan,

In the study Ozcan and fellow researchers injected overweight mice with leptin injections along with PBA or TUDCA and found they rapidly lost weight. 'Normal mice treated with the drugs dropped some weight,' he said. 'Our study is the first success in sensitizing obese mice on a high-fat diet to leptin,' he said. He said after 30 days on the drugs the mice lost 16 % of their body weight.

The researcher’s hope the drug would work in humans just as well as it did in mice and hope to conduct clinical trials along with other researchers. 'Our results may define a novel treatment option for obesity.' Dr Ozcan said. 'If it works in humans, it could treat obesity.'

The two drugs are currently used to treat neurological diseases like Alzheimer's and Huntington's while PBA also often is prescribed to treat liver dysfunction and cystic fibrosis. The drug TUDCA has been used for centuries in Chinese medicine, and is used to treat liver ailments.