Processes of Hunger / Appetite

There are a number of separate process that stimulate appetite / hunger and therefore lead to overeating, if impulse control is insufficient to resist. There is no reason that after a meal, that I or anyone should be craving more food. Some food seem to increase appetite / hunger.Those are foods that act like deliberate appetite stimulus.  Resisting is a bitch, and I loose some of the time. I would be better off just not eating those foods.

It is more like hunger than appetite; however has elements of both. I tried not eating for a few days, and the hunger goes away, but so does the energy. I cannot live like that. The doctors have been no help. It is like talking to a deaf person, nothing seems to get through. I guess they can only fix what they know how to fix. Like the old story about the guy with a cold, who the doctor told him to stand outside in the rain. "I would catch  pneumonia". Dr., " yeah, but we know how to fix that."

There are a number of circuits or systems or hormones involved in the hunger/appetite development. The first is leptin. It is produced by the fat tissue, not visceral fat not inter-cellular fat. Its function is to tell the hypothalamus that we have sufficient fat on board. It is interfered with by to much insulin.

Dr, R Lustig says that "Obesity is characterized by hyperinsulinemia. Although hyperinsulinemia is usually thought to be secondary to obesity, it can instead be primary, due to autonomic dysfunction. Obesity is also a state of leptin resistance, in which defective leptin signal transduction promotes excess energy intake, to maintain normal energy expenditure. Insulin and leptin share a common central signaling pathway, and it seems that insulin functions as an endogenous leptin antagonist.

Suppressing insulin ameliorates leptin resistance, with ensuing reduction of caloric intake, increased spontaneous activity, and improved quality of life. Hyperinsulinemia also interferes with dopamine clearance in the ventral tegmental area and nucleus accumbens, promoting increased food reward.

Accordingly, the First Law of Thermodynamics can be reinterpreted, such that the behaviors of increased caloric intake and decreased energy expenditure are secondary to obligate weight gain. This weight gain is driven by the hyperinsulinemic state, through three mechanisms: energy partitioning into adipose tissue; interference with leptin signal transduction; and interference with extinction of the hedonic response to food. "   


Insulin interfers with leptin signaling, and food tastes good longer. Enough to convince some part of our brain that more food would be good. Bad brain, enough food already.

This probably had benefits in old times. This is the feature which allows us to eat during feasts or plentiful food periods, but we live in one today that has not ended.

I have a growing list of concepts of issues with the body that cause physical hunger/appetite issues. Which one is it today? How is one to know? Which is effecting you?