Hunger Hormone may drive fat storage not appetite

[Vincent Lee]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hunger-hormone-may-drive-fat-storage-not-appetite/

I just finished reading this article, which suggests that Ghrelin isn’t the hormone that controls hunger as one previously thought and in fact its main role may be to store fat. If this is the case, how can Ghrelin be used for the purpose of fat burning, when it promotes fat storage?

[Matt Filhol]

Hi Vincent, I haven’t read the article you posted or read much into Ghrelin at all, but your question sparked a memory of an article that mentioned ghrelin, here’s what the author said:

‘Ghrelin is the easiest to raise. It is the hunger hormone. So… get hungry. When your stomach is growling and hunger pangs are stabbing you in the belly right before you cave to the pressure and eat the storehouse of food, ghrelin is hitting its peak concentrations in your body. Unfortunately, this is a real willpower battle, so not one I recommend. But whenever you feel the hunger, you are just annihilating stored bodyfat. Controlled fasting and ghrelin have a lot of benefits actually, like curing all digestive disorders, resting your organs, accelerating detoxification’

‘Even though we don’t want to raise insulin at night, you also don’t want to raise ghrelin prior to bed or you won’t sleep well. Larger meals of greens and fats or small servings of high glycemic index carbs ( which will be cleared from the blood quickly) are better for the end of the day, so as to keep ghrelin and insulin low, growth hormone and testosterone high and enable stress hormones to spike right around when you are supposed to wake up.’
Article:
http://www.elev8wellness.com/wellblog/category/weightloss

Maybe it depends on the context of when Ghrelin is elevated: in which population, at what time, with what other hormones.
Perhaps at times it promotes storage whereas at other times it promotes loss. I’m not sure. Just some ideas.

I find the hungrier I am the more fat I’m capable of loosing, but the double edged sword that hunger is, I also have a higher capacity to eat more and when I do eat that extra, it appears to go back as fat (or bloat) double time. Also, maybe if you prolong it too much, too often, too severely; things go wrong (eg super low calorie diets for already lean individuals don’t work well, whereas mega obese people can sometimes get away with daily/ weekly fasts with the right measures in place)

[Author]

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