Depending on the medical history of the patient, blood laboratory tests may be advised if necessary. Human Nutritionist Claudia Louch designs the customised diet plan, once all the data has been collected to maximise the effect and outcome of the diet for each patient.

A study results presented in March 2010 by investigators from Stanford Prevention Research Center at Stanford University School of Medicine during an oral presentation titled “Genotype Patterns Predict Weight Loss Success: The Right Diet Does Matter,” showed that individuals who were assigned diets that were appropriate for their genotype, showed statistically significant greater weight loss, metabolic benefit and other improvements when compared to individuals on diets not matched to their genotype.

At the Harley Street Nutrition Clinic we are at the cutting edge of modern research, and Gene & Hormone Testing is available to our patients to improve the outcome of their customised diet plans. We particularly focus on IGF-1 and Leptin, which have shown in various research institutions to be linked to weight gain and weight loss as follows:

Following the discovery of leptin in 1994, scientific and clinical communities have researched the leptin axis, to aid the successful treatment of obesity. Therefore, at the Harley Street Nutrition Clinic, we use Leptin as an important and integral scientific tool, to help our patients in achieving their optimal weight.

The fascinating discovery that our hormones are very much part of the weight-gain and weight-loss process was made in the 1950s, when two animal breeders noticed a genetic mutation, now known as the defective 'ob' gene, in their mouse colony that led the affected mice to become naturally very obese. Only in 1994 was it discovered, by researcher Jeff Friedman and colleagues at Rockefeller University in New York, that the genetic mutation caused a lack of a hormone in white adipose (fat) tissue called leptin, which if missing, leads inevitably to chronic obesity. 

Now it has been recognised that the findings from 1994 where an oversimplification. Leptin is also produced by the stomach and placenta and receptors for this hormone are found  in many tissues. However, in terms of weight regulation the size and quantity of the fat cells are utterly important: more and larger fat cells produce more Leptin. Leptin then signals through receptors in the hypothalamus, which is the control centre for our hormones in the brain, to restrict energy intake, i.e. appetite. Therefore, if this mechanism does not work due to a genetic defect or most commonly due to leptin resistance, caused commonly by years of yo-yo dieting or eating the wrong composition of foods, this causes the hypothalamus to change the body's natural Set Point, which may result in obesity or difficulty in loosing weight.  

Most of us are born with an optimum Set Point, which naturally maintains our genetic ideal weight. This is easily brought out of balance through inadequate and crash dieting and if the human body does not receive the correct type, composition and amount of nutrients within one day. Hence, the Set Point must be reset to its original setting, through a carefully customised and monitored approach, which is what the Set Point Diet stands for. Claudia Louch has researched at her own clinic the interactions of the hormones leptin and ghrelin in relation to weight gain and weight loss and follows with great interest all the latest scientific studies in this field.