14 DAY TRIAL // At the beginning of the new century more scientific studies have shown that there really exists a hunger hormone in our bodies that transmits the hunger sensation to the brain and urges us to eat - large or small amounts of food, depending on everyone's organism and lifestyle.
The hunger hormone is called ghrelin and is primarily found in the cells of the stomach epithelial tissue, but also in various areas of the brain and hypothalamus. Before we eat the levels of ghrelin in our bodies are very high and stimulate brain cells, that "let us know" that we should eat. After we eat, the levels of the hunger hormone decrease considerably.
The counterpart hormone of ghrelin is leptin, released by the adipose tissue. Leptin is the "satiety hormone," as it provides the neuronal cells with satiation signals. When found in elevated levels within our body, the satiety hormone leads to lack of appetite by giving us the impression that we are fed up even if we have not eaten anything since many hours.
Logically, medical experts have linked ghrelin hormone to obesity and eating disorders and the leptin hormone to lack of appetite disorders such as anorexia or other diseases in which patients do not manifest any urge to eat, like when suffering from various types of cancer, AIDS etc. That is why they thought that the treatment for the two types of eating problems - eating too much or too less - should consists of reversing the functions of the appetite hormones. Consequently, ghrelin should be used to enhance hunger in those that are too skinny and lack the physiological need of eating, while leptin should be used for making obese people eating less.
More recent researches have provided us with even more surprising news: it seems that, besides leptin, there is a second appetite-blocking hormone called obestatin. Obestatin is another hormone found in our bodies that regulates hunger and, if found in high levels, stops hunger sensation and transmits satiety signals to the brain. But the novelty really consists in the fact that obestatin and ghrelin - the two completely opposed hormones - are produced by the same kind of cells.
Even if experts have shown that by injecting obestatin in rats' bodies leads to suppressing their appetite and this may become the easiest way of preventing or treating obesity, the ghrelin hormone is still needed in our bodies and there must be equilibrium between hunger and lack of hunger.
Ghrelin hormone is tightly connected with the growth hormone, therefore enhances body's physical development. Recent studies carried out in February this year have also shown that high levels or ghrelin in the body stimulate and improve memory and concentration.
All in all, both hunger hormone and satiety hormone are needed within our bodies, but there must be found a balance in the amounts in which they are produced by the cells. Because when the levels of ghrelin are higher than common, it leads to obesity, but when the levels of this troubling hunger hormone are lower than usual, it inhibits growth and memory abilities.
