LEP and malnutrition: These studies support the view that leptin administration could be a novel approach for protection against the bacterial infections, and may prove beneficial to human population susceptible to bacterial pneumonia under certain pathological conditions like HIV infection, malnutrition, and diabetes mellitus (Jubiz et al., 1984; Skerrett et al., 1990; Coffey et al., 1996; Cederholm et al., 2000).