If it seems to you that grumbling in the stomach and a strong desire to eat something here and now is a sign of the body's need for food, then you are mistaken. It often happens that we eat only because it gives us pleasure, improves our mood, or, for example, we head to the refrigerator out of boredom. We decided to take a closer look at the problem of hunger and talk about several of its types. But before getting to the heart of the matter, it’s worth understanding what hunger is and how it “works.”
"Mechanics" of hunger
To put it simply, hunger is a phenomenon that occurs some time after eating due to the cessation of nutrient intake. At this time, severe stomach cramps occur, irritating receptors in the mucous membrane of the digestive organ. In addition, the feeling of hunger is caused by a decrease in blood glucose levels. If it is low, it causes an acceleration of the bioelectrical activity of the hunger center neurons located in the hypothalamus. The cerebral cortex and subcortical centers can also act as a stimulant. Thus, if our stomach grumbles, we experience a sensation of “sucking”, and the brain commands us: “Eat something!”. But are we really hungry all the time?What types of hunger exist?
natural hunger
Hunger is not an aunt.
Have you not eaten for a long time (several hours) and you feel like eating something, you feel unpleasant phenomena in your stomach: rumbling, gurgling, etc.? In this case, you may simply feel the need to replenish your supply of nutrients. This is the main and "classic" type of hunger. Because of it, you should not feel guilty - you just need to eat something.
Hunger caused by anger
Did someone piss you off? Don't try to eat it!
This is not exactly a type of hunger, but a good reason why our body requires to provide it with nutrients. Anger is a strong emotion that in specific people (after all, not everyone reacts in the same way) leads to the fact that we suddenly feel very hungry and feel the need to eat something. What happens after eating? We feel at peace and experience great pleasure. Unfortunately, this is a kind of disorder that should not be underestimated.
Hunger provoked by a bad mood
Don't bite depression, you won't get enough.
As with the previous point, this is a type of hunger caused by feeling unwell or depressed. We suffer, we are sad because something extremely unpleasant happened in life (someone died, a loved one left us, we did not pass the session, etc., etc.), so there is a desire to compensate ourselves something bad pleasant. What are we doing? Let's eat! Chocolate, ice cream, candy, pizza, hamburger... There are many options, but we still feel hungry. What’s more, the mere fact of eating something tasty improves our mood, and we finally start to smile. Alas, it does not lead to anything good.
Hunger from boredom
The void cannot be filled with food...
Are you sitting at home and it's raining or snowing outside? The temperature on the thermometer is not conducive to going out, and all your friends, as luck would have it, are busy today? Bored, need to do something... Maybe something to eat? This is mistake!
night hunger
If I dream of food, then why is that sign?
Gourmands who are affected by this problem will surely smile now. Night hunger for some is something from the category of fantasy, for others - a real curse. Have you ever heard of people who wake up in the middle of the night with a sudden strong desire to eat something (often sweet)? This is an example of nighttime hunger, known as night eating syndrome. Its causes are not fully understood, but it is known that in some cases it can be caused by too modest amounts of nutrients supplied throughout the day. Therefore, if the body has not received enough, for example, sugar during the day, it will require it at night.
Hunger as a habit
I want - I eat, I don't want - I eat ... It's the way it is in our family.
Do you eat food at a set time each day? Breakfast at 10, lunch at 2? It's no wonder you get hungry just before it's time to eat. This is the habitual hunger programmed by the body. He knows when to send you the appropriate signals, even though he doesn't really have a big need for food. Of course, this has its upsides, because any nutritionist will advise sticking to consistent meal times. But if you feel full, refrain from eating, wait for a while, despite the fact that it seems to you that you need to eat something.
visual hunger
I would eat everything... with my eyes! Everything is so delicious!
Do you see something tasty, for example, cookies on the shelf, your favorite sweets, and immediately feel hungry? The fact is that your eyes and available treats make you hungry, which try to deceive the body and send “fake” signals to the brain.
And now what to do with it?
It is easiest to give universal advice: if your hunger is one of the 6 listed (because only the first is physiological and natural), run away from food and resist temptation. By the way, in some cases it works fine. But only in some. For if everything were so simple, there would be no need for diets and psychological techniques created to alleviate the plight of the "starving", and there would be no numerous weight loss centers, as well as an entire industry for the production of drugs for gaining a healthy weight. The problem of eating behavior is complex and complex, and this article is only a small contribution to understanding the mechanisms that you need to know in order to overcome “fake” hunger, which often has a psychological cause.
14.3. STATES OF HUNGER AND SATURATION
A. The state of hunger. According to Cannon's early hypothesis, the periodic motor activity of the gastrointestinal tract is the cause of the sensation of hunger, according to other researchers, its consequence. At the same time, arising periodically in the process of intensive
stomach cramps, afferent impulses have an activating effect on the food hypothalamic center, which increases the feeling of hunger and supports search and food-procuring behavior aimed at finding nutrients in the environment and satisfying food needs.
Under nutritional need understand the decrease in the level of nutrients in the internal environment of the body caused by metabolic processes. The state of hunger occurs at a certain stage of consumption of nutrients in the body. It is determined by two factors: the evacuation of chyme from the stomach and small intestine and a decrease in the level of nutrients in the blood (the appearance of "hungry" blood), including as a result of the transfer of nutrients from the blood to food depots.
sensory stage the state of hunger is formed under the influence of impulses from the mechanoreceptors of the empty stomach and duodenum, the muscular wall of which, as the chyme is evacuated from them, acquires an increasingly increased tone. During this period, there is only a feeling of hunger.
metabolic stage the state of hunger begins with a decrease in nutrients in the blood. During periods of hungry motor activity of the gastrointestinal tract, the frequency of afferent impulses entering the medulla oblongata and lateral hypothalamus sharply increases, which in turn leads to the transfer of nutrients from the blood to food depots and the cessation of the reverse flow of these substances into the blood. The deposition of nutrients occurs mainly in the liver, striated muscles of the musculoskeletal system and adipose tissue. Food depots "close" and thereby prevent further consumption of nutrients in the body. As a result of deposition, the concentration of nutrients in the blood decreases further. Becoming more and more "hungry", the blood turns into the most powerful stimulus of the food hypothalamic center.
"Hungry" blood acts on the food center of the lateral hypothalamus in two ways: reflexively - through irritation of the chemoreceptors of the vascular bed; directly - through irritation of the central glucose receptors of the lateral hypothalamus, selectively sensitive to a lack of certain nutrients in the blood.
There are several theories explaining the origin of hunger sensations when there is insufficient content of a certain type of nutrients in the blood: glucose (glucosostatic theory), amino acids (aminoacidostatic theory), fatty acids and triglycerides (lipostatic theory), metabolic products of the Krebs cycle (metabolic theory). According to the thermostatic theory, the sensation of hunger arises as a result of a decrease in blood temperature. It is most likely that the sensation of hunger arises as a result of the action of all of these factors.
The lateral nuclei of the hypothalamus are considered as the center of hunger. It is here that the transformation of the humoral nutritional need into a systemic nutritional motivational excitation of the brain (food motivation) takes place.
Food motivation - the impulse of the body caused by the dominant food need, which determines the formation of eating behavior (search, obtaining and eating food). The subjective expression of food motivation is negative emotions: burning sensations, "sucking in the stomach", nausea, headache and general weakness.
The hunger center of the lateral hypothalamus is excited according to the trigger principle. When a food need is formed, the excitation of the neurons of this center does not occur immediately, but through primary changes in excitability to a critical level, after which they begin to exert ascending activating influences.
According to the pacemaker theory of the formation of food motivation by K.V. Sudakov, the hunger center of the lateral hypothalamus plays an initiating role in the organization of the cortical-subcortical complex of food motivational excitation. Excitation from the lateral hypothalamus spreads first to the limbic and reticular structures of the brain and only then to the cerebral cortex. As a result of selective excitation of neurons in the anterior sections of the cerebral cortex, search and food-procuring behavior is formed.
An electric current stimulation of the hypothalamic center of hunger in animals causes hyperphagia - continuous eating of food, and its destruction - aphagia (refusal of food). “The hunger center of the lateral hypothalamus is in reciprocal (mutually inhibiting) relationship with the satiety center of the ventromedial hypothalamus. When sti-
mulation of this center is observed aphagia, and when it is destroyed - hyperphagia.
B. The state of saturation. In the process of food-procuring behavior and eating food, accompanied by continuous secretory and motor activity of the digestive system, the entire complex of afferent excitations from the receptors of the tongue, pharynx, esophagus and stomach is addressed to the saturation center of the ventromedial hypothalamus, which reciprocally inhibits the activity of the hunger center of the lateral hypothalamus, which leads to reducing feelings of hunger. After a sufficient amount of food has been taken to satisfy the nutritional need, as a result of inhibition of the hunger center of the lateral hypothalamus, the system of food motivational excitation disintegrates, food-procuring behavior and food consumption stop. Coming sensory saturation stage, accompanied by positive emotions. The mechanism of sensory saturation allows, on the one hand, to reliably assess the quantity and quality of the food taken, and on the other hand, to “cut off” the feeling of hunger in time and stop eating long before the formation and absorption of nutrients in the digestive tract.
Stage of true (metabolic) saturation occurs much later - after 1.5-2 hours from the moment of ingestion, when nutrients begin to flow into the blood.
As the consumption of nutrients in the body and the formation of a new nutritional need, this entire cycle is repeated in the same sequence.
Thus, hunger and satiety are extreme states in a series of phenomena between the emergence of a food need and its satisfaction. The state of hunger shapes eating behavior, and the state of satiety stops it.
My tummy wants to eat - this is how we usually signal our friend from work that it's time to go to lunch. Rumbling may be in the stomach, but hunger originates in the head - regulated by a complex system of chemical compounds that transmit signals between the brain and the rest of the body.
Cells in the hypothalamus coordinate the secretion of chemicals, which in turn regulate the amount and type of food you eat. Their production also stimulates the smell, look and taste of the food that ends up on your plate.
Amino acids, fatty acids, and glucose regulate your hormones, such as insulin, which stimulate processes at the cellular level. These substances send signals to the brain that you need this food. When the body lacks energy, neurotransmitters are released. One of them is neuropeptide Y (NPY), which plays an important role in transmitting messages to specific areas of the brain.
Explore the Hunger Hormone
Low levels of glycogen and blood sugar cause a sharp increase in ghrelin concentration and more NPY activity in the hypothalamus. And when it comes to NPY stimulation - appetite increases.
For example, during sleep, your body uses up glycogen and sugar stores, and your brain releases NPY. If you don't eat breakfast, around noon, your NPY levels will rise to levels that will cause severe carbohydrate hunger. This all-consuming desire to eat something sweet is not due to a lack of willpower. This is an innate, natural reaction of the body.
Explore the Satiety Hormone
Immediately after a meal, leptin levels rise, inhibiting NPY secretion. This makes us feel full. But if some time has passed since the last meal, the blood glucose level drops again, along with it the level of leptin, and the ghrelin that enters the blood causes hunger again.
The timing of high ghrelin concentrations depends on when you have your main meal. In people who eat a large meal, ghrelin peaks at a different time than in people who eat large meals in the evening.
Meet... Your Body's Other Hormones
Galanin is released when the body's fat stores need to be supplemented. In the evening, the level of this hormone in the blood usually rises. Most likely, in this way the body provides itself with enough calories to survive the night.
When you eat, food enters the stomach and then travels through the gastrointestinal tract. As it is digested, epithelial cells release cholecystokinin, which causes a feeling of satiety and satisfies the feeling of hunger.
Scientists claim that anorexia and bulimia negatively affect the chemical compounds that regulate appetite. In people suffering from bulimia, the CCK mechanism is disrupted or the system that regulates the secretion of chemical compounds goes into a state of inactivity, so bulimics consume huge amounts of food faster than the brain can send a satiety signal.
The reverse situation occurs in anorexics - the mechanism of CCK secretion is so sensitive that they feel full after a few bites. Usually, when bulimics and anorexics begin to eat normally, CCK functioning returns to normal.
It can be manifested by a feeling of emptiness in the abdomen, characteristic sounds in the stomach, as well as general weakness, dizziness, flies before the eyes, trembling in the limbs. If the sensations are true, then such symptoms usually appear only after a sufficiently long period of time after the last meal. In this case, we can talk about a real strong feeling of hunger.
However, in some cases, these symptoms are a sign of a decrease in blood sugar or a lack of nutrients in the body, which may be caused by prolonged adherence to an overly strict diet, or diseases, most often associated with impaired carbohydrate metabolism. In this state, a person most of all wants to eat something sweet, and after eating, he calms down, his condition stabilizes.
slight feeling of hunger
Usually it is not intrusive and often disappears even without additional food intake. Sometimes a slight hunger can be eliminated by snacking on an apple or simply drinking a glass of water or a cup of tea.
Some experts even tend to consider a slight feeling of hunger as a normal state of the body, which must be maintained in oneself. Indeed, the recommendation to “keep your feet warm, your head cold, and your stomach hungry” makes some sense. However, the main thing in this case is not to overdo it.
Light hunger is exactly the state when you need only a couple of tablespoons of food before the satiety stage. No wonder nutritionists advise getting up from the table with a feeling of slight hunger. The fact is that the satiety signals that enter the brain food centers do this with some delay. For this reason, in order to avoid overeating, one should leave the body feeling slightly undernourished. After 20-30 minutes, this feeling will pass, and you will feel quite full.
Frequent feeling of hunger
It is determined not so much by the level of glucose in the blood, but by reasons that we usually do not take seriously:
- it is the manner in which food is eaten;
- is the quality and calorie content of the food consumed;
- these are the foods that are on our plate.
The appearance of a feeling of hunger can be influenced by countless different external factors, which include joint lunches and tea parties in the office, prolonged idleness or prolonged watching TV, the habit of eating food outside the kitchen or dining area, not at the table, but on the run or on the couch. By the way, our seemingly harmless eating habits are precisely those unconscious causes that contribute to the appearance of this symptom, overeating and subsequent poor health and weight gain.
A frequent feeling of hunger is formed gradually, originating from simple and seemingly frivolous moments:
- if you cannot imagine a tea party without cookies, sweets or a sandwich;
- you often allow yourself to overeat;
- Do you prefer to eat a hamburger or chew on chips than an apple?
- Are you obsessed with losing weight?
- you are prone to stress, often nervous, subsequently calming down with the help of eating “delicious”;
- you drink a lot of coffee;
- you can't watch TV or read a book without taking something to chew on with you;
- you rarely eat at the dining table, preferring the sofa, the computer desk, or generally like to eat on the go.
Of course, these are not all the reasons, but it is the above factors that are very, very common, so you should definitely pay attention to them.
Sucking hunger
Why is hunger associated with the feeling of "sucking" in the pit of the stomach? What is it connected with?
The sucking feeling of hunger is expressed in the appearance of not very pleasant sensations that disturb in the area of the projection of the stomach. As a rule, this sensation is referred to as "sucking" in the pit of the stomach. If the hunger is strong, then the condition can be aggravated by the addition of nausea, weakness, general loss of strength.
The sensation of "sucking" in the pit of the stomach is associated with emptiness in the stomach. With a full stomach, there will be no such sensation. Sometimes, with a pathological feeling of hunger that occurs with a full stomach, one can observe general manifestations of hunger based on the excitation of the food center in the brain. The characteristic "sucking" is not observed.
Feeling hungry before period
Known to all women, premenstrual syndrome is the appearance of increased fatigue, pain in the lower abdomen, irritability, headache. However, for most women, the main symptom of PMS is hunger.
The feeling of hunger before menstruation is explained by cyclic hormonal changes in a woman's body. In the II phase of the cycle, among the female hormones, progesterone begins to be actively synthesized, which is responsible for a possible pregnancy and tries to do everything so that the body is ready for it. In particular, one of the tasks of progesterone is the accumulation and retention of nutrients in the body so that the tissues do not starve, and the embryo develops normally. Under the influence of progesterone, the body begins to demand additional nutrition from us in order to stock up on all the necessary substances in case of pregnancy.
If pregnancy does not occur, then the level of progesterone gradually decreases, and by the 2-3rd day of menstruation, the increased feeling of hunger disappears.
Hunger is defined as the feeling of needing food. However, this sensation does not always develop during malnutrition. People with eating disorders may feel hungry after eating, or not at all. It is reliably known that over the past 50 years, the amount of calories consumed by a person has increased by 100-400 kcal per day. People began to eat more processed food and move less. Obesity has become a global problem, and hunger control is a hot topic in nutrition.
Mechanisms for the development of hunger are more complex than it might seem at first glance. The sensation of hunger and satiety occurs in the hypothalamus. There is a so-called food center. It has two departments - one signals the need for food, the other is responsible for the feeling of fullness (calorificator). Roughly speaking, we feel hunger in the head, where signals come from the stomach and intestines through nerve impulses and blood.
Entering the gastrointestinal tract, food begins to be digested and assimilated, being absorbed into the blood. If we compare the blood of a hungry and well-fed person, then in the latter it is more saturated with digestive products. The hypothalamus is sensitive to changes in blood composition. For example, we may experience hunger when.
Researchers are still studying the processes of hunger. Only in 1999 it was opened. It is produced in the stomach and sends a signal to the brain about the feeling of hunger. The second significant hormone that affects the formation of a sense of need for food is leptin - it is produced in adipose tissue and sends a signal to the brain about satiety.
There are several types of hunger: physiological, psychological, forced and starvation.
Physiological hunger is born in the stomach. It occurs when there is a lack of food in the form of gradually increasing discomfort. The sensation can be described by the words "grumbles in the stomach", "sucks in the pit of the stomach." Many overweight people do not wait for this moment, satisfying earlier. This kind of hunger can be tolerated. For example, when you feel hungry on the road, you do not try to satisfy it, but agree with yourself that you will eat upon arrival.
Psychological hunger cannot be felt with the stomach, it is born in the head and has no connection with the feeling of satiety. It can be felt after eating or at the sight of food temptation. Emotions interfere with psychological hunger. They also interfere with determining the arrival of saturation. That is, a person cannot understand what is enough for him. Some people overeat to the point of cramping or a feeling of fullness in the stomach. Psychological hunger can occur for certain foods. Then people say that they are dependent on them. After eating, a person experiences embarrassment, guilt or shame. On a diet, people often satisfy their psychological hunger with other foods. For example, a strong craving for chocolate appeared, and a person suppressed it by eating a kilogram of low-fat cottage cheese. It does not change the essence - the psychological hunger was satisfied by another product.
Forced hunger can cover a group of people. History knows many examples. The last outbreak of mass starvation was recorded in 2011 in East Africa, where 50-100 thousand people died from starvation. This phenomenon may have economic, political, religious or violent reasons. The starving themselves do not have sufficient resources to meet their food needs.
Fasting is voluntary. It can be absolute - a person does not eat at all, or relative - malnourished. Starvation is also called the state of the body, resulting from a lack of nutrients. It is known that without food a person can live a maximum of two months. If some types of relative fasting, like or capable of bringing some benefit to the body, then long-term fasting affects the psyche, changes the functioning of internal organs, reduces the functions of the immune system and should be stopped immediately.
Forced mass starvation is a global problem of mankind, and voluntary starvation belongs to the class of medical problems. We cannot solve them, but we are able to control physiological and psychological hunger.
Controlling physiological hunger is key to weight loss. To make weight loss more comfortable, you must:
- Define for yourself.
- - diets where the protein intake in the diet is 1.2-1.6 per kilogram of body weight are easier to tolerate than diets with low protein intake.
- - A mixed diet helps to maintain a feeling of satiety.
- Eat solid food - liquids are absorbed faster.
- Fats slow down digestion and promote long-term satiety.
- Reduce sugar intake to a minimum - drastic affect appetite.
- Give up rigid diets - low-calorie diets make you constantly fight hunger and.
Having provided all the conditions for controlling physiological hunger, it is necessary to take care of the psychological one. This will help:
- Refusal of severe restrictions - include "harmfulness" in a small amount in the diet. With active weight loss, their share should not exceed 10% of calories.
- Talk to yourself - ask if you really want to eat it, how full you are, why you are eating and why you keep eating when you are full. Ask yourself about emotions and desires. Often behind psychological hunger is anxiety or desire for other things. Consult a psychologist if you feel that you can not cope on your own.
- After each meal, determine the time of the next one - your task is to hold out until this time without putting a crumb in your mouth. Be sure to set the composition and volume of food in advance so as not to overeat.
The feeling of hunger brings discomfort. With a decrease in weight and caloric content of the diet, it is completely normal to experience slight discomfort (calorizator). When the discomfort becomes unbearable, breakdowns occur. Do everything in your power to, because the more convenient the diet, the less harm it brings to health and the easier it is to get the result.
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