Dieting woes tied to hunger hormone
By John Travis
The latest findings on the hormone ghrelin may help explain why dieters find it so tough to keep off weight they’ve lost. Discovered in 1999, this hormone may also account for the frequent success of a last-ditch surgical strategy to beat obesity.
A growing amount of data suggests that ghrelin is the signal that makes people feel like eating (SN: 2/16/02, p. 107: The Hunger Hormone?). The concentration of ghrelin in a person’s blood rises rapidly right before a meal and falls once food is eaten.