Your Brain Signals to Your Body It Needs Food : Brain Foods

Article by Marquis Van De Mark

It’s the cells in the brain from the hypothalamus gland that regulates when you should eat and not your stomach scientists have discovered. Food will trigger your brain to remember the way food tastes, smells and will excite chemicals in the brain to eat.

When the body needs food or nourishment, neurotransmitters are released.One neurotransmitter called Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is important in sending messages to various parts of the brain.

Ghrelin and glucose: According to the theory, low levels of glycogen and low blood sugar levels stimulate a spike in ghrelin and NPY’s activity in the hypothalamus. As NPY is stimulated, your desire for sweet and starchy foods goes up. And when ghrelin rises, so does appetite.

While you sleep, your glycogen and blood sugar stores are used up, causing the brain to release NPY. Skipping breakfast increases NPY levels so that by afternoon, you’re set up for a carbohydrate binge. This craving for carbs is not the result of a lack of willpower; it’s an innate biological urge at work.

The leptin link: After eating, leptin levels increase and inhibit the firing of NPY, so you feel full. If it has been a while since you’ve eaten, your blood levels of glucose are low and therefore leptin is low, and ghrelin is high.

The circulating levels of ghrelin peak at different times depending on when you have your heaviest meal. People who eat big lunches show ghrelin peaks at a different time than people whose main meal is at night.

The galanin-fat connection: Galanin is released when fat stores need filling up. In the evening, galanin levels tend to rise, which may be nature’s way of making sure that people have enough calories to last them through the night.

CCK: When you eat, food enters and fills your stomach and then travels to the intestinal tract. As the food is digested and the body’s cells are fed, a chemical called cholecystokinin (CCK) is released, turning on feelings of fullness and turning off the appetite.

It’s all in the Brain, food craving’s and the desire for food come from the brain first, not the body.

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