14 DAY TRIAL // Gulping down a hearty steak sounds like a sure way to stave off hunger. The trouble is that, according to a recent investigation, this might not be the case.
Quite the contrary, eating one too many chunks of pork or beef might, in fact, make you even hungrier. Thus, researchers at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in the US claim to have found evidence that red meat consumption can increase appetite.
It's the iron in red meat that's to blame
As part of their investigation, the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center team fed laboratory mice a diet rich in iron, which is also present in red meat.
The scientists discovered that, the more iron was added to the rodents' diet, the more their levels of an appetite-regulating hormone called leptin dropped, a report in the Journal of Clinical Investigation explains.
Specifically, the team documented a 42% drop in leptin levels in the mice that were kept on a diet especially rich in iron.
As a result of this leptin suppression, the laboratory mice experienced an increase in appetite and started eating more than they normally would have.
The researchers argue that, if their finds also hold true when it comes to the human brain and its response to a high iron intake, this means that too much red meat can lead to overeating and, in time, weight gain.
“We showed that the amount of food intake increased in animals that had high levels of dietary iron,” study senior author Don McClain explained in an interview.
There are other risks to eating red meat
Specialist Don McClain and colleagues caution that, apart from potentially increasing appetite and making people eat more than they should, having too much iron in the body can cause several health complications.
Diabetes, fatty liver disease and Alzheimer’s are just some of the conditions previous studies have shown correlate with high iron levels. Hence, cutting down on red meat consumption is recommended.
True, the body does need a certain amount of iron to function properly. Be that as it may, the researchers say that it's best if we take this iron from veggie snacks instead of meat.
This is because the body more readily absorbs the iron found in red meat than the one present in plants, which means it's easier for this compound to build up and mess up our hormonal balance.
It should be noted that the report in the Journal of Clinical Investigation makes no reference to a link between red meat consumption and an increase in appetite as a result of a build-up of iron in the body.
These observations were included by the Wake Baptist Medical Center researchers in their press release concerning this investigation and its findings.