How Hunger Works
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Understanding how hunger works helps figure out the best diet & stick to it.
Hunger is a tricky, complex mechanism.
Hormones, nervous signals and psychology come into play together to make one big mess and various types of feelings. Part of this complexity is due to there being a set of sub-mechanisms that trigger the hunger sensation, and completely different sub-mechanisms that trigger the feeling of dietery satisfaction (or satiety).
Ultimately, when you understand them, you can control hunger to some degree (although not completely). So let’s look into all those mechanisms. Then we’ll see how you can act to control it.
Hormones
First let’s have a quick run-down on what hormones are and how they work.
Hormones are chemical messengers. They are secreted when a message needs to be sent to a part of the body where that specific hormone’s receptors are located. The bloodstream serves as a means of communication, simply by transporting the hormone molecules to those receptors. Once they get there, they “fit” into the receptor, much like a key in a hole. This triggers a specific chain of events that the hormone was meant to cause. In this case, hormones that trigger hunger cause neurological events that lead to your feeling hungry.
There are two hormones that contribute to telling your brain that you are hungry. The most important is ghrelin, but a high concentration of glucagon in the bloodstream also cause hunger generating signals to the brain.
Ghrelin is secreted in various places in the body that detect conditions that require you to eat.
The liver secretes ghrelin when its glycogen storage runs low (glycogen is in fact a strand of sugar molecules assembled for storage). This makes sense, because if storage is running low, it means that blood sugar levels have been low long enough to deplete it.
The stomach secretes ghrelin when it is empty.
The pancreas and hypothalamus are both capable of detecting low sugar levels in the bloodstream. When they do, both contribute to the secretion of ghrelin.
Glucagon is a molecule that is secreted by the pancreas when blood sugar levels diminish. Most of its receptors are located in the liver, and the result of the hormonal message is the breaking down of glycogen strands into sugar molecules that are released in the bloodstream to keep blood sugar levels constant. It also triggers signals that amplify the hunger sensation.
There are completely different hormones that cause the opposite effect (satiety).
Leptin is secreted by fat cells when excess fat and sugar is being stored. Leptin also plays a part in fat breakdown (lipolysis), but this part is not well known. It has only been demonstrated in empirical studies that showed that decreased leptin secretion slowed down weight loss. This would account at least in part for the “slowed metabolism” that occurs during dieting.
Cholecystokinin is a very complex hormone, made up of over 100 amino acids, that is secreted by the intestines during digestion. This hormone was first discovered in 2002.
Insulin’s main role is to cause sugar and fatty acid uptake by cells that use them for energy or store them. Liver cells store sugar as glycogen, fat cells store sugar and fatty acids in the form of triglycerides and muscle cells use sugar (white muscle cells use sugar and store glycogen) and fatty acids (red muscle cells use them during endurance efforts – Pasteur effect). Insulin is glucagon’s counterpart and is also secreted by the pancreas.
Nervous Signals
Most of the nervous signals that lead to hunger are actually caused by hormones, except those sent through the vagus nerve.
The vagus nerve directly links the stomach to the brain and sends complex signals of varying frequency. This leads to varying degrees of hunger or satisfaction, depending both on quantity and quality. It detects the types of food present in the stomach and reacts differently to each food group. The strongest satiety effect is caused by protein.
Psychology
We saw in a previous article on nicotine addiction just how powerful the brain’s reward cycle could be in determining behavior. What is true for nicotine can also be true for food.
Comfort food triggers this reward cycle if it is taken as a result of stressful events. The more this happen, the more reward cycles occur and therefore the more comfort food will be associated with stress relief. It can become a psychological addicition that leads to a physiological addiction to sugar and ultimately cause insulin resistance (a very common problem) and type II diabetes (also a very common problem).
This effect is called positive reinforcement in psychology. Another psychological mechanism called punishment has the opposite effect (food isn’t associated with pleasure, but with pain). This can become a disorder that can potentially lead to anorexia: eating is associated with a painfully negative (and often unreasonably exagerated) self- image . The anorexic thinks she (usually a woman) is too fat while she may in fact be just skin and bones. Eating becomes painful.
Benefits of Understanding
Understanding hunger allows you to follow a dieting plan that takes it into account.
Hunger caused by low glycogen storage and decreasing leptin secretion is kept in check with cheat day (restoring leptin secretion also keeps metabolism running).
Hunger caused by sugar lows is considerably reduced by emphasizing the use of low GI foods (stabilizing both sugar highs and sugar lows).
Hunger caused by the vagus nerve is reduced by ensuring proper protein intake (without going overboard – protein digestion causes high levels of toxicity) as well as fiber intake (insoluble fiber especially cause food to stay in the stomach longer).
Hunger caused by stress and other psychological factors can be identified as such and lead you to focus on relaxing. Note that stress also causes cortisol spikes which are known to cause belly fat storage.
Identifying the cause of your hunger should help you deal with it better and ultimately lower your consumption of comfort foods. Many of these factors are taken into account in the free weight loss plan (which of course should only be undertaken under proper medical supervision).
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