In a recent Nature Letters article, Batterham and colleagues demonstrated how a hormone released by the stomach tells our brain when we’re full.

I know you’re wondering, “why is this interesting”?

I’ll tell you, but first let’s talk about a couple of types of hunger.

The Need to Feed

Of course, we have our run of the mill hunger because you haven’t eaten recently. This is dictated by signals that come from your energy reserves (i.e. fat) and stomach when it is empty. This is considered homeostatic (which means, maintaining equilibrium or balance) regulation of hunger and is the process that helps us maintain adequate nutrient and energy stores we need for survival.

The Pining for Pie

On the other hand there is hedonic (pleasure seeking) hunger. This is what is going on after you’ve had an appetizer, your entrée, a piece of pie and have decided to give the “death by chocolate, black-forest, triple-fudge, rum-cake” a taste. By that point you’re not hungry, but who could pass up a cake like that!?!?!

And it tastes good, so you eat it. Even though you know you won’t be able to bend over and tie your shoes if one of you laces comes undone (which is why loafers are a must).

Many other factors can stir up this type of hunger, and you may have heard it referred to as “emotional eating.” The point is that you don’t need food in this case, but you want it. And when you give in to the wanting (hedonic) hunger too often, you’ll certainly start to pack on the pounds, unless you are making substantial efforts to burn off those extra calories.

Brain, Brain Go Away, So I Can Eat Some More Today

So… back to why this is interesting! Well, homeostatic and hedonic eating are regulated by different circuits in the brain. A hormone called peptide-YY helps the stomach tell the brain that it’s full.

Our brains are, usually, pretty good at “putting the brakes” on unnecessary or risky behaviors. In line with this, the new study shows that the area of the brain that controls homeostatic eating is activated by Peptide-YY.

In addition, the authors were able to show that Peptide-YY activated a region of the brain that “puts the brakes” on the rewarding feeling that occurs with hedonic eating even though they hadn’t eaten for over 14-hours.

Well, that’s fantastic, but people probably don’t want to inject themselves with Peptide-YY to stave off the munchies…….I know I don’t.

So is there a way that we could “optimize” the levels of Peptide-YY by modifying our behavior? And in this way we could eat what we “need,” without venturing too far into the “wanting” side of eating?

I’m so glad you asked.

Although only a handful of studies have been conducted it appears that eating foods that are more slowly digested help elevate Peptide-YY levels. This basically suggests that we should stay away from food that contains lots of processed sugar.

Now I’m a fan of the aforementioned cake, so I’m not saying don’t eat it. But perhaps we could stack the deck in favor of not overeating by making sure we have our veggies and grains, eating a bit more slowly, and NOT having desert first!