Breast Milk Hormones and Their Protective Effect on Obesity

Table 1 Breast milk hormones.

Hormone	Year of discovery	Receptor	Detection of receptor in intestine	Main functions	Year of discovery in breast milk	Method of detection in breast milk	Detection in umbilical cord blood
Leptin	1994	Ob-receptor	In humans [17]	Anorexigenic effect	1997	RIA [1, 18], ELISA [16]	[12, 19, 20]
Adiponectin	1995	Adipo-R1 Adipo-R2	In humans [21]	Improvement of insulin sensitivity, increase in fatty acid metabolism, anti-inflammatory and anti-atherogenic properties	2006	RIA [2], ELISA [22]	[20]
Ghrelin	1999	Growth hormone secretagogue receptor -1a	In humans [23]	Orexigenic action; stimulation of GH secretion; stimulation of acid gastric secretion and motility	2006	RIA [4, 24]	[25]
IGF-I	1950	IR IGF-IR IGF-IIR Insulin receptor-related receptor IR-IGF-IR hybrid receptor	In humans [26]	Primary mediator of growth hormone effects; role in the regulation of postnatal human growth from late infancy onward	1984	RIA [3]	Ibáñez L et al., 2008; Lagiou P et al., 2009
Resistin	2001	Unknown	Unknown	Regulation of insulin sensitivity	2008	ELISA [6]	[27]
Obestatin	2005	GPR39	In mice [28]	Anorexigenic effect?	2008	RIA [5]	Unknown?

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