A hamburger loaded with fats and carbohydrates followed by a fat and sugar rich ice cream are the worst solutions for easing your hunger. In fact, an American team has found in a research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism that a high in protein meal seems to be the best solution for keeping hunger in check, in a real breakthrough understanding of how various diets work.

Proteins were found to be the best nutrient category in keeping a hunger hormone under control, while carbohydrates and fats can be even worse than previously thought. The team investigated how effective the three main nutrient categories (proteins, carbohydrates and fats) are on decreasing the levels of at ghrelin, a hormone released by the stomach and involved in boosting the appetite.

"Suppression of ghrelin is one of the ways that you lose your appetite as you begin to eat and become sated," said co-author Dr David Cummings of the University of Washington in Seattle.

16 subjects were offered three types of beverages, each having different concentrations of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Blood samples were collected from each subject before the first beverage, then every 20 minutes, for six hours period following the consumption of the beverages. The researchers assessed in the blood samples the ghrelin amounts.

"The interesting findings were that fats suppress ghrelin quite poorly. They fared the poorest overall," Cummings told Health24.com.

"Proteins were the best suppressor of ghrelin in terms of the combination of the depth and duration of suppression. That is truly satisfying because high proteins are essentially common to almost all of the popular diets," added Cummings.

But the nastiest surprise came with the carbohydrates (sugars): initially, they determined the sharpest drop in ghrelin levels, but hormone's amounts boomed even to a higher level after the initial reaction! Physiologically, the carbohydrates consumption induced an even more acute hunger sensation then before the meal.

"The findings may aid in future research on the effectiveness of different diets," said Cummings.

Proteins abound in lean meat, liver, fish, milk, some dairy products, mushrooms, some nuts and beans.