2024 Author: Jasmine Walkman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 08:29
Many people go on a diet to get rid of the nasty extra pounds. However, constant starvation and dietary restrictions can be a bad joke and at the same time the weight can not be lost.
The main culprit for this is the hunger hormone ghrelin, which is excreted in the stomach and directly affects a person's appetite. It is this insidious hormone that can never allow a person to lose weight and at the same time constantly think about various delicacies.
The hormone was discovered relatively late - only in 1999 by a team of Japanese scientists. In-depth research by David Campings, an American nutritionist, found that in fact ghrelin is a real alarm clock for the feeling of hunger. Leptin is the other hormone that, along with ghrelin, affects hunger.
The human body has the ability to maintain and regulate a stable and constant state for long periods of time. In terms of weight, the body has many tools that affect the appetite and keep it within constant limits in terms of energy balance. In order to gain or lose weight, you need to increase or decrease your energy intake.
This in turn affects hormone levels. If a person loses weight abruptly, it will cause the body to react in its own way and cause a number of hormonal fluctuations. It is leptin and ghrelin that are the hormones that play an important role in the regulation of food intake.
Just as ghrelin causes hunger, so leptin is the hormone responsible for satiety. Leptin and ghrelin are secreted in different parts of the body, but thanks to the hypothalamus they communicate with the brain.
Ghrelin functions
Ghrelin is secreted by the stomach, but can be found in other places such as the ovaries, pancreas, gastrointestinal tract, adrenal cortex.
The ghrelin is a regulator of body weight in the short term - when its levels are high, a person is hungry, and when he eats - the levels fall. When the goal is to lose weight, the ghrelin should be at low levels to prevent starvation.
Control of ghrelin levels
Food intake has a serious effect on ghrelin, and short-term and abrupt diets do not lead to long-term success. If a person wants to lose weight, he should do it at a slow pace so as not to get the unwanted yo-yo effect that is observed in abrupt weight loss. Stress also occurs with systemic [overeating].
A number of experts believe that to improve the levels of both ghrelinAs well as leptin, regular sleep and omega-3 fatty acids are important.
This is due to the fact that omega-3s are generally associated with lower hunger. Lack of sleep leads to increased ghrelin levels and lower leptin levels, as well as disturbances in glucose metabolism. Regular physical activity is also an important factor.
Ghrelin and diet
The ghrelin is the hormone that provokes hunger and the uncontrolled attack of the refrigerator. It increases dramatically in people on a diet. American scientists put on a special diet a group of obese people with an average weight of 99 kg, and after 6 months it turns out that their ghrelin level jumps before each meal by as much as 25%.
After the starving volunteers stopped restricting, ghrelin levels dropped. This practically proves that ghrelin is the main factor in the failure of diets - people can not stand the regime and as a result of high ghrelin attack the refrigerator.
The ghrelin acts in stark contrast to leptin, which signals satiety. When the body has enough fat stores, it produces more leptin and its level in the blood increases - a person is full, and vice versa - when a person loses weight, the level of leptin decreases and the brain says that the body needs more food to make up for your losses.
In obese people, the main problem is that they are resistant to the action of leptin - the higher its level in their blood, the brain does not feel satiety.
In a diet, the stomach produces much more ghrelin, signaling the brain to starve. This signal completely contradicts the overall idea of diets and the desire to lose weight, because a person experiences excruciating hunger, which is very difficult to resist.
In the future, scientists believe that they will be able to understand how to suppress the production of ghrelin and so people on a diet get rid of the overwhelming thoughts of something to eat.
From all the above we can safely conclude that a proper and balanced diet is the best way to maintain a normal weight.
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How To Regulate The Hunger Hormone Ghrelin?
According to endocrinologists, two of the most important hormones you need to focus on if you want to lose weight and maintain your energy balance are ghrelin and leptin. Many experts call them hunger hormones because they work to either increase or decrease appetite.
