Full but still eating?

The premise that hunger makes food look more appealing is a widely held belief — just ask those who cruise grocery store aisles on an empty stomach, only to go home with a full basket and an empty wallet.

The premise that hunger makes food look more appealing is a widely held belief — just ask those who cruise grocery store aisles on an empty stomach, only to go home with a full basket and an empty wallet. Prior research studies have suggested that the ‘hunger’ hormone ghrelin, which the body produces when it’s hungry, might act on the brain to trigger this behaviour. New research in mice suggest that ghrelin might also work in the brain to make some people keep eating “pleasurable” foods when they’re already full.

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It’s the brain’s fault

“There may be situations where we are driven to seek out and eat very rewarding foods, even if we’re full, for no other reason than our brain tells us to,” said Dr Jeffrey Zigman, co-senior author of the study that appears the online edition of Biological Psychiatry. Scientists previously have linked increased levels of ghrelin to intensifying the rewarding or pleasurable feelings one gets from cocaine or alcohol. Rewards give us sensory pleasure, and they motivate us to work to obtain them. “They also help us reorganise our memory so that we remember how to get them,” said Zigman.

When administered with ghrelin, the mice, who had been fed a high fat dessert, pursued it even after being sated because they remembered how much they enjoyed it. Without ghrelin, the mice in the experiment gave up desiring the dessert.