It seems to many that the smaller a person's stomach, the less he eats. In fact, even people with a surgically removed stomach sometimes manage to make themselves obese.
And on the other hand, quite big uncles and aunts sometimes gorge themselves on just a few spoons of porridge. What's the catch?
Hole bag
The stomach is not just a bag, it is more like a bag with a hole at the bottom. It can fill up quickly, but it empties just as quickly through the hole. Plus there are many more different saturation mechanisms.
Nowadays people eat a lot of refined sugary and fatty foods, from which nutrients are absorbed at a breakneck speed.
No matter how quickly glucose is absorbed, our body does not reduce the production of its own internal glucose in the liver. This is all due to the fact that higher animals (including us) quickly die from low blood glucose levels. So the body will not take risks, and we do not feel satiety even when sweets are already traveling through our intestines.
After the food reaches the end of the small intestine, satiety hormones begin to be released, and the appetite decreases.
In addition to reducing appetite, hormones also slow down gastric emptying. Less food is poured out through that very hole at the bottom of the bag, and the stomach is full.
What happens if you eat more and more refined food?
People love to eat. Over time, they get used to eating more and more. The intestines and pancreas are trained as athletes and develop the ability to absorb a lot of sweet and fatty foods. All this abundant food so powerfully stimulates the initial section of the small intestine that the most distant hormonally active sections of the intestine become dull and do not release saturation hormones. Therefore, the glutton constantly wants to eat.
It is interesting that even if the stomach is removed from such a glutton, he will still gorge himself on excess fat. This is all from the reduced sensitivity of the distant parts of the small intestine.
Emptying
When the intestines are working and releasing hormones of satiety, these hormones slow down gastric emptying. It's clear. The intestines are busy with their own business, and right now they do not need an extra portion of food.
But the insidious hormones of satiety act on the stomach in a very peculiar way. They relax him, and the stomach gets the ability to stretch a little more.
That is, hormones dull hunger, but allow the stomach to pack an extra piece of food. In reserve. At this stage, the glutton will not slam the doors of the cabinet and refrigerator, his search behavior will stop, but if he shoves a treat under his nose, he will surely swallow it.
This is gluttony. It is characteristic of higher animals. It is considered a wonderful survival mechanism that evolution gave us. We are genetically inclined to get drunk to the bone, and then fill the vacant place in the stomach.
What happens
It turns out that we eat, food fills the stomach, then goes into the intestines and at the end of the small intestine hormones begin to be released. They dull appetite, slow down the emptying of the stomach (because food is already packed in the intestines), but also relax the stomach. This is necessary so that after filling the belly, we also fill a full stomach. In reserve. The primitive animal learned to take with it in the stomach sweets that they did not want to leave to their relatives.
Fatty people don't have to have a big stomach. Their intestines simply produce few hormones that dull appetite and slow down gastric emptying.
The glutton's stomach does not overflow; it constantly works and empties. More and more portions of food go into the intestines, are digested there and absorbed. In this case, satiety does not occur, and the stomach does not stop.
How do you think you can break such a vicious circle?
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