Weiye Loh's Library tagged Hunger → View Popular, Search in Google

Jul

2011

Most people think hunger pangs are brought on by their stomach. In fact, that feeling is generated inside your brain.

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‘Two systems bring on appetite,’ says Victor Zammit, professor of metabolic biochemistry at Warwick Medical School.
‘A long-term system measures how fat we are, reported by levels of leptin, a hormone secreted by fat cells; while a short-term system tells us how long since we last ate, measured by the contents of the stomach, intestines and colon.’
We basically feel hungry if our fat levels drop or the stomach is empty.
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- ‘If you diet and lose fat, your leptin levels drop and that is like switching on an alarm in the brain,’ says Professor O’Rahilly.
  ‘The brain then makes you feel hungry, signalling that you must find food and consume calories immediately.’
  Exercise is similarly self-defeating for dieters because the drop in blood sugar — as it is used up by muscles — lowers the level of insulin, another hormone responsible for switching off appetite. Low insulin levels lead to food acquiring behaviour.
- we do sometimes crave what we need.
- ‘Satisfying our appetite is a hard-wired behaviour which encourages us to seek out highly dense food for the biggest energy intake,’ says Professor O’Rahilly.