Globally, tipping the scales too much is a major reason people face health troubles or worse. The issue has been growing because various factors throw off our hunger and fullness signals, impacting our weight in the process. Ever wonder if staying up late or endlessly scrolling on your phone could lead to extra munching? You bet, with hormones such as leptin and ghrelin stirring up trouble in this complex balancing act.
Ideally, these two hunger hormones work together to help keep you maintain a healthy weight. Unfortunately, most of us end up being overweight or obese. In fact, more than 1.9 billion adults were overweight and over 650 million were obese in 2016 (1). Who’s to blame? Is it our hormones? If yes, can you keep them in check?
To answer these questions, you first have to know how your hormones work.
Ghrelin is produced in the gut. Most of us know it as the hunger hormone, but it is also sometimes referred to as lenomorelin. It stimulates hunger by traveling through your bloodstream and entering the brain to act on the neurons in your hypothalamus.
Its main function is to increase appetite. It prompts the brain to increase the activity of the hunger-causing nerve cells and reducing the activity of hunger-inhibiting cells. As the stomach empties, the release of ghrelin increases. The higher your levels, the hungrier you get. It makes you eat more food, consume more calories and store fat (2, 3). It also affects your sleep-wake cycle, reward-seeking behavior, taste sensation, and carb metabolism (4, 5).
Ghrelin levels normally increase before meals, during an empty stomach. Then they decrease shortly after, once you become full (6). You might think that obese people have higher ghrelin levels, but that isn’t always the case. They may just be more sensitive to the hormone’s effects. In fact, some studies show that their levels can be lower than in lean people (7, 8, 9). Other evidence even suggests that obese people have more active ghrelin receptors, GHS-R, which causes leads to increased calorie intake (10, 2).
But regardless of how much body fat you have, ghrelin levels will increase and make you feel hungry as soon as you start fasting. This is a natural body response that tries to protect you from starvation. During fasting, your “fullness hormone” called leptin decreases. Your metabolic rate also shoots down significantly, especially when devoid of calories for long periods of time (11, 12).
These adaptations aren’t easy, making it difficult to lose weight and keep it off. Your hormones and metabolism will always try to adjust to make up for all the weight you lost. What can be done then? Is there a way for you to lower your ghrelin levels?
Ghrelin cannot be controlled with medications, diets, or supplements. But there are things you can do to help keep a healthy level.
Leptin is secreted mainly by white adipose tissue, and levels are positively correlated with the amount of body fat. Like many other hormones, leptin is secreted in a pulsatile fashion and has a significant diurnal variation with higher levels in the evening and early morning hours (23).
Leptin mediates its effects by binding to specific leptin receptors, ObRs, present in the brain as well as in peripheral tissues. The binding of leptin to the receptors activates several signal pathways that are important for the regulation of energy homeostasis, food intake, and glucose homeostasis (23). It also has many other functions related to fertility, immunity and brain function (25).
When you eat, your body fat goes up, leading your leptin levels to go up. Thus, you eat less and burn more. Conversely, when you don’t eat, your body fat goes down, leading your leptin levels to drop. At that point, you eat more and burn less.
This kind of system is known as a negative feedback loop and similar to the control mechanisms for many different physiological functions, such as breathing, body temperature, and blood pressure. It should keep you from starving or overeating. However, something is broken in the mechanism that is supposed to prevent us from overeating.
People who are overweight or obese have many body fat in their fat cells. And since fat cells produce leptin in proportion to their sizes, obese patients are expected to have very high levels of leptin (26).
Given the way leptin is supposed to work, obese people should naturally be able to limit their food intake. Their brains should recognize that they have plenty of energy stored. However, in some people, leptin signaling does not work. While copious leptin is present, the brain doesn’t see it (27). This condition is known as leptin resistance, which is now believed to one of the main contributors to obesity (28).
When your brain doesn’t receive the leptin signal, it erroneously thinks that you are starving even if you have more than enough energy stored. This makes your brain change its behavior in order to regain body fat (29, 30, 31). Your brain then encourages you to eat more and reduce your energy expenditure by burning fewer calories at rest.
For most people who struggle with leptin resistance, willing yourself to overcome the leptin-driven starvation signal is next to impossible.
Several possible mechanisms have been identified (32, 33):
Many of these factors are amplified by obesity. That means you can get trapped in a vicious cycle of gaining weight and becoming more resistant to leptin over time.
If you have many body fat, specifically in the belly area, you are most likely resistant to leptin. It is not entirely clear how resistance can be reversed, but some experts think that reducing diet-induced inflammation can be helpful. Focusing on an overall healthy lifestyle is also an effective strategy.
You can do the following:
There isn’t a simple way to reverse leptin resistance. All you can do is make long-term lifestyle changes that will help improve the quality of your life overall.
Who doesn’t know insulin? For sure, you have heard of it at least once, in relation to diabetes. This hormone is produced by the beta cells in the pancreas and is secreted in small amounts during the day and in larger amounts after eating.
Insulin allows your cells to take in blood sugar for energy or storage, depending on what you need. It is also the main fat storage hormone in the body. It tells fat cells to store fat and prevents stored fat from being broken down.
If your cells are insulin resistant, which is a common diagnosis, both blood sugar and insulin levels increase significantly. Chronically elevated insulin levels, a condition known as hyperinsulinemia, may cause several health problems, including obesity and metabolic syndrome (41, 42, 43).
Eating more sweets, which contain refined sugar, and processed foods like fast-food chains may drive insulin resistance and increase insulin levels (44, 45, 46).
Here’s how you can normalize your insulin levels and improve insulin sensitivity:
The adrenal glands release more cortisol when your body senses stress. While this hormone is vital for survival, excessively high amounts of cortisol can cause overeating and weight gain (47).
A strict diet can also increase cortisol levels. Evidence showed that those who had low-calorie diets had greater amounts of cortisol levels as they seem to be more stressed than those who are eating normally (48).
There are ways to reduce your cortisol level:
Women know estrogen by heart. This hormone is mainly produced by the ovaries and is involved in regulating the female reproductive system and menstruation.
Did you know that both extremely high and low levels of estrogen can cause weight gain? This depends on your age, overall state of health, and the action of other hormones.
Estrogen starts promoting fat storage at puberty, in an attempt to maintain fertility during your childbearing years (49). Also, it can stimulate fat gain at the start of pregnancy.
Obese women have higher levels of estrogen levels than those with normal weight due to environmental influences (50).
At menopause, when estrogen levels start to drop because less is being produced in the ovaries, the site for fat storage shifts from the hips and thighs to the abdomen. This will promote insulin resistance and increase disease risks (51, 52).
To help you manage your estrogen levels, follow these nutrition and lifestyle strategies:
Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is a hormone produced by cells in the brain and nervous system. It stimulates appetite, especially for carbs, and is highest during periods of fasting or food deprivation (57, 58, 59).
Levels of NPY may also increase during of stress, which can lead to overeating and abdominal fat gain (60, 61, 62).
You can follow these recommendations to lower your NPY levels:
Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) is a hormone produced in your gut in response to meal intake. The main actions of GLP-1 are to stimulate insulin secretion and inhibit glucagon secretion, thus playing a huge role in keeping blood sugar levels stable. It also makes you feel full.
Evidence showed that the decrease in appetite that occurs immediately after a weight loss surgery is also brought about by the increased production of GLP-1 (65). Another study showed that taking a GLP-1 solution with breakfast can make you feel more satisfied and eat 12% fewer calories at lunch (66).
Here are a few suggestions on how you can increase your GLP-1 levels:
Cholecystokinin (CCK) is a peptide hormone linked to the gastrointestinal (GI) system. The receptors are expressed in the central nervous system, specifically in the hippocampus, cerebral cortex, and striatum. Levels of CCK-producing neurons in the brain are low at birth but steadily increase into adulthood. Like GLP-1, cholecystokinin (CCK) is also a satiety hormone (67).
Higher amounts of CCK have been shown to reduce food intake in both lean and obese people (68, 69, 70).
You can increase your CCK levels by:
The gut hormone peptide YY (PYY) is an amino acid peptide that is produced from specialized L-cells found predominantly within the distal GI tract. It is released from the gut into the circulation in a nutrient-dependent manner. It can control appetite. It is believed to play a major role in reducing food intake and decreasing your risk of obesity (71, 72).
To increase your PYY levels, you should:
Your hormones are designed to work together to help increase or decrease your appetite and fat storage. Unfortunately, if the system does not work well, you may find yourself struggling with weight problems long-term.
Luckily, diet and lifestyle changes have powerful effects on our hormones. Keep in mind the above mentioned tips to maintain a healthy weight.
(1) https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight
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