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Congratulations! You started your New Year’s resolution diet, and so far you’ve kept it. What’s the next big obstacle? Of course, Valentine’s Day.

"In the past 20 years, we've learned a lot about hunger and satiety hormones," says Scott Isaacs, MD, a board-certified endocrinologist in Atlanta and author of Beat Overeating Now! "The first one was leptin, which was discovered in 1994." Since then, many other hormones that impact hunger, appetite, cravings, and weight have been discovered. "Leptin is a hormone that's produced by fat cells, and it works to suppress appetite in the brain," Isaacs explains. "We used to think a fat cell was an inert storage depot for excess fat, insulating the body. But now we know that fat is an endocrine organ, that is, a gland that produces hormones. Leptin is just one of the hormones produced by fat cells." The amount of leptin circulating in a person is proportional to the amount of body fat and indicates how much energy stores a person has.

However, some studies have found that only 5 percent of people have a TSH above 2.5 (though others say it's more like 15 percent). That is to say, being above 2.5 is statistically abnormal. And abnormalities are, by and large, how medicine decides what a disease is.

If you store your leftovers in plastic, keep old receipts lying around or think nothing of eating an unwashed grape or two, you could be exposing yourself to chemicals that impede weight loss. "These substances slow your metabolism and increase appetite or alter hormones such as estrogen in the body to cause weight gain," says Scott Isaacs, M.D., an endocrinologist and author of Beat Overeating Now!

I refuse to use them," says endocrinologist Scott Isaacs, an obesity specialist at Emory University in Atlanta. "In my opinion, there's no good clinical data that they actually work, and I have found that patients seem to regain weight as soon as they stop taking them."