First off, according to Mehmet Oz, MD who is referenced in this article, the hormone called Ghrelin is what is responsible for making your stomach growl as well as stimulating appetite. The hormone Ghrelin is secreted by the stomach and fuels hunger on a time-based schedule. Interestingly, its schedule directs you to breakfast, lunch, and dinner, without you even knowing. Normally, it will recognize that you are hungry in the m
orning, a few hours later for lunch, and a few hours later for dinner. This is the schedule of Ghrelin and in order to tell you that you are hungry (whether you think you are or not), and send the appropriate notifications throughout the body your stomach will start to growl which is sometimes, unfortunately, at the most inconvenient times in our daily schedule.
So now the question is, what happens when you don’t eat “on schedule” and are sitting in Pre-Calculus at 8:00 in the morning wishing you had stopped by Dunkin Donuts and got a ham, egg, and cheese sandwich on an English muffin (Just me?). Obviously, missing meals is not a good thing because you are not getting nutrients that your body needs to function or calories that give you the energy to get around from class to class and sprint to the place where a fight just broke out. When your stomach growls it’s an indication that you need to get something in your system because you are running out of calories to burn and your body will start to eat itself. This turns into catabolism which is the opposite of anabolism, where your body is burning necessary calories as fuel. Without food, your body has nothing to burn.
As for why the feeling goes away? I would assume it’s because, as stated before, the body starts eating itself so that is how it gets “fed.” However, I haven’t found any more information besides that. The whole concept of the body eating itself is the method behind that madness of anorexia. People starve themselves purposefully and have the body consume itself to lose weight. After a while, the hunger feeling goes away for them because they hardly ever consume actual food. But I love food just as much as I love sleep so I make sure I buy a satisfying lunch at 11:00am. That way, the only scheduled meal I miss is breakfast (sadly).
* That is a picture of some enchiladas, I had them the other night and all of this blogging about food and scheduled meals reminded me that it's almost dinner time and I know what I want for dinner :) *
Diet pill Idea. Boom suppress the hormone, not hungry? Stop eating, Lose weight. Problem lies in not gaining enough nutrients, now you're just killing yourself. Solution? Vitamins and water. I was actually watching Requiem for a Dream (Disgusting Movie) and one of the characters wanted to lose weight in order to fit into a dress. She was prescribed Amphetamines and had to take them on a daily schedule and then a depressant at night in order to sleep. It did curb her appetite and she had more energy than ever. The problem was she became acclimated to the drug and kept upping the dosage to dangerous levels. Soon enough she was going insane suffering from amphetamine produced psychosis. She ended up in a mental ward getting electroshock treatment. The whole movie itself was pretty messed up. Now if stimulants curb appetite, depressants increase appetite? I guess that would make sense. "Munchies" ring a bell for anyone? (Stay away from drugs kidz, mmkay) Pretty sure "Drunk Munchies" also goes along with that. Now what I want to understand is how people essentially go crazy. WHAT causes mental illness? Chemical imbalances in the brain? So...how does that happen? I read increased levels of dopamine correlate with psychosis. Well that certainly explains why amphetamines would cause you to grow crazy. Brain overload son. But what about severe depression? Too little? Biggest question is how does the immaterial Mind fit in with all the neural wiring inside the brain which is basically just electrical impulses firing over and over again. Its funny to think that the electrical impulses grew a consciousness and wondered how it got itself to work, and called itself the brain.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't think that our bodies will begin to eat itself after only a few minutes. Assuming that were true then I would think humans could only live a day without eating or at least after one day they will be extremely close to death. I mean most people can survive for 21 days without food and I feel like our bodies could not supply that much food for that long. If so I don't think we would eat as much, but yet we eat several times a day.
ReplyDelete@USafdar, yeah I see what you're saying. I myself find it peculiar that my hunger goes away in a few minutes. Maybe it's just the mental hunger where you think you are hungry but you aren't physically hungry. However, as I stated, I couldn't find any other explanation so I just assumed based on what I did find. You do make a point though.
ReplyDeleteMy dad used to have a job as a workout trainer and told me that when our body runs out of digustable food it reverts to eating its self or at the lineing of the stomach. So maybe (especially for myself) that's the painful feeling that you get when you're moaning and groaning for something to eat. However that feeling might go away because our body is starting to break down the stored energy in our body fat.
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