Endocrinologist with 23 years of experience talks about the hunger hormone ghrelin
Ghrelin is the peptide hormone to which we owe feeling the need for food. When someone is said to have a great appetite, it means that the person has high levels of ghrelin.
This hormone was discovered relatively recently, in 1999, and since then there have been more and more confirmations of its high status in the endocrine hierarchy.
What is the hunger hormone responsible for?
We know that ghrelin has great powers, in fact being conductor of other hormones at the level of the hypothalamus.
When a person is full, the level of ghrelin in his body is low.
When enough time has passed after a meal, the level rises.
In addition to stimulating appetite, ghrelin stimulates the synthesis of growth hormone or, as doctors call it, somatotropin. About him I told here.
Where does ghrelin come from
Ghrelin is produced from a prohormone, which is produced in fundic stomach
. This part of the stomach is usually cut off during bariatric surgery - this is when the stomach is surgically reduced. That is, there is a double effect: the volume of the stomach is reduced and less food is required for saturation. Plus, the area where the hormone is synthesized decreases.Logic dictates that if you learn to reduce the production or activity of ghrelin, then a person will not suffer from a wolfish appetite. Accordingly, you will eat less and slim down.
But not everything is so simple.
Is it possible to lower ghrelin
There are reliable results interesting experiments on rats.
Scientists assumed that by “turning off” the hormone ghrelin and its receptor (making it inactive), the animals would become anorexic, that is, they would completely cease to be interested in food.
But nothing of the kind happened.
In addition, when the ghrelin receptor changes, its sensitivity became much higher.
Not only that, when rats with a highly active receptor and normal rats were fed the same amount of food, the scientists noticed that the former gained significantly more weight than normal rats.
I.e ghrelin promotes weight gain, moreover, precisely due to the accumulation of adipose tissue.
Alas, so far an elegant solution to reduce appetite by manipulating ghrelin has not been obtained.
Your Doctor Pavlova
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