Why does the feeling of hunger disappear when you ... it

Are you feeling hungry but have nothing to eat? Read a book, hunger will temporarily go away.

Why when you are so hungry, can you forget it if you are doing something with a high concentration, such as reading a good book? It is almost like you have the ability to "ignore" hunger until the job is done, that is when hunger feels at its peak.

According to LiveScience, this is a seemingly simple question, but the answer is actually quite complex and confusing, nutrition experts say.

When a person is in a hungry state, a series of events is triggered and informs the brain that the body needs food. One of those events is a hormone called ghrelin - "the only calcium that can increase appetite and the amount of food that can be taken into the human body , " according to a study published in the Journal. Physiology and Behavior in 2006.

Ghrelin is mostly produced in the stomach and duodenum (the first part of the small intestine). Once produced, ghrelin can cross the boundary between blood and the brain to target certain parts of the brain and trigger hunger, according to the study. Moreover, ghrelin is with us 24/7: its level decreases when we eat, increases before meals, reaches a concentration sufficient to stimulate hunger.

If you're really distracted, sometimes you'll be able to forget the feeling of hunger.

However, a strange finding showed that ghrelin is not the agent for the presence and end of hunger.

In a study published in 2016 Clinical Nutrition Magazine, 59 overweight adults took part in an eight-week program, during which time they were vegetarian the day before (they alternated between days of fasting). and the day was relaxed. But after assessing the ghrelin level of the participants, the researchers found that "hunger is not related to ghrelin levels . at any given time" , study writing.

In other words, when we are vegetarian, ghrelin levels increase. But for some reason, these people reported that they did not feel hungry more than usual.

Colleen Tewksbury, who manages Penn Medicine's weight loss program, shared with LiveScience: "It is interesting that the subjective question" How hungry are you? "Does not really match our clinical evaluations. ".

So why can humans basically ignore hunger? An opinion based on "folk" observations suggests that stressful activities can turn people off of hunger, Leah Groppo, clinical nutritionist at Stanford Health Care Hospital in Palo Alto , California said.

"If you are really distracted , sometimes you will be able to forget the feeling of hunger, and then over time hunger will diminish because you are extremely focused on something else," she told LiveScience. .

However, if there are enough signals around you to remind you of hunger - for example, you are reading a novel but you are next to the kitchen, and the aroma of dinner is spreading in the air, then you Most likely will remember how hungry you are.