Hungry Hormones
Our appetite is chemical.
“It’s time to cut calories today,” you say a few minutes before guzzling down a hearty dinner with extra portions of rice and ulam. After all, how can you resist eating a few extra bowls of rice? Let’s not talk about the ice cream tub that has long been sitting in your freezer. And what about the bag of chips and popcorn you have been saving for a Netflix or movie night?
What makes it so hard to resist the temptation of eating even after convincing yourself not to eat more? Why does your stomach grumble before dinner, but then go silent after eating the medium-rare A5 Matsusaka Wagyu tenderloin steak from your favorite steak restaurant?
The answer lies within the powerful chemicals your body produces: hormones. Hormones are messengers sent all over the body, helping your cells and organs do their jobs.
There are many different types of hormones that all vary in function. In general, hormones are crucial in maintaining homeostasis or the state of balance in your body. They regulate blood sugar levels, blood pressure, fluid levels, and body temperature. Hormones also help orchestrate growth and development, puberty, mood, and reproduction.
Aside from these, hormones are also shown to influence hunger. The ‘hunger’ hormones are chemicals the body produces that influence appetite. The two main ‘hunger’ hormones are ghrelin and leptin.
Ghrelin is a hormone produced in the stomach. It gives you the feeling of ‘hunger,’ signals that feeling to the brain, and helps increase food intake. Ghrelin levels are affected by calorie intake; they are low in obese people and high in people who restrict the amount of calories they eat. Ghrelin also plays a role in fat storage, growth hormone release, and insulin control.
Leptin, produced by adipose tissue (body fat), plays a key role in regulating appetite, giving you the feeling of ‘fullness.’ Generally, leptin levels increase when your fat mass increases and decreases when your fat mass decreases. Researchers also believe that leptin may also influence your metabolism, excess hormone regulation, and immune function.
Ghrelin signals an appetite while leptin tells your brain you are full. In a healthy person, leptin acts as a suppressor to ghrelin in a phenomenon known as a negative feedback loop. This is a process where the output of a system acts to counteract the initial change and bring the system back to a stable equilibrium. Basically, the system ‘self-regulates,’ which helps it maintain balance, or homeostasis in the case of the human body.
In the case of the hunger hormones, ghrelin is more prevalent in the body before eating dinner which makes us feel hungry. When we finish eating our share of dinner, the internal system of our body is ‘disrupted,’ and leptin is released to stop us from eating more. After the original state of our body is achieved, leptin levels die down and ghrelin takes over again, making us feel hungry again.
Now, is there a way to control levels of leptin or ghrelin to lose or gain weight? Unfortunately, there is no clear-cut answer; however, studies show that a balanced, low-fat diet may help in controlling the craving for that extra bowl of rice. A balanced diet can go a long way. Besides providing all the essential nutrients for the body, research suggests that diets rich in whole grains or protein are more successful at suppressing ghrelin and controlling hunger compared to diets high in fat. Studies show that fatty meals can disrupt the signals that tell our body to stop eating, leading to overeating and weight gain. Researchers have observed these effects after just three days of a high-fat diet.
Understanding how these hormones (and hormones in general) work can help you stay healthy. By making smart dietary choices, such as opting for more protein and carbohydrates over fatty and processed foods, you can help keep the ‘hunger’ hormones balanced and achieve a healthy weight–and, maybe, finally cut down on calories like you wanted to.
Sources:
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22464-hormones
https://www.webmd.com/diet/features/your-hunger-hormones
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/body/22804-ghrelin
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22446-leptin
https://www.news-medical.net/health/Ghrelin-and-Leptin.aspx
https://www.yourdictionary.com/articles/negative-feedback-loops
