Any efforts at losing weight whether you are aware of it or not, will will affect the body hormones that greatly affect our metabolism. This information is published in scattered bits and pieces across the internet and sometimes the relationships are not explained too clearly. I will try to offer a brief but hopefully more complete explanation of the hormones affected in not only weight loss but also in weight gain.

One of the key hormones that affect weight management is insulin. Insulin is a blood sugar regulator. High carbohydrate intake leads to higher blood sugar levels. This leads to an increase of insulin output by the body. Insulin production is the body’s natural response to excessively high sugar levels in the blood. If that sugar is not getting converted into energy fast enough to maintain safe levels in the blood, insulin will resort to an alternate to that conversion to energy. This results in the conversion of that blood sugar into fat that will be stored by the body.
 
The often used term lipogenic refers to simply means an element exhibits fat producing qualities. In addition to insulin being lipogenic, it also exhibits another quality that is undesirable to weight loss programs. Insulin is also antilipolytic. This simply means that it works to fight against the breakdown of fat. As you now see, a diet that stimulates high insulin output will certainly be encouraging natural body activities that are not desirable in your efforts to lose weight.

When the body is stressed due to any number of reasons, insulin production also increases in order to stimulate the production of cortisol, which is a stress response hormone. The body then responds to high cortisol by reducing the levels of the hormone dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA). This hormone is very influential in the production of muscle. Producing more muscle than fat is our ultimate goal. So you can see that stress can lead to the production of fat instead of muscle.

Chronic stress stimulates fat cells into storing fat. Fat cells located in the abdominal wall, characteristically possess more cortisol receptors on their cell membranes. So in turn, stress will encourage these cells to retain more fat.

Leptin is produced by adipose tissue and leptin binds to nucleus cells of the hypothalamus, a region of the brain known as the "satiety center." Binding of leptin to these cells, tells the brain that the body has had enough to eat thus providing the sensation of being full. In a small number of humans, mutations of the leptin gene are present that stimulate a constant demand for food. This typically leads to severe obesity. Unfortunately this condition often encourages a vicious circle. As the body produces greater and greater quantities of leptin to fulfill the requirements of the process it sometimes causes higher tolerances and reduced efficiency. Although management of this hormone has yet to be understood fully, there have been some short term benefits experienced by the administration of recombinant human leptin by way of injection.

Page 1 of 2 :: First | Last :: Prev | 1 2 | Next