overeating reduces levels of a hormone that signals the feeling of fullness in the brain, potentially promoting more eating, a new study has found. When the gut senses too many calories, a pathway that promotes the feeling of fullness becomes blocked, according to researchers from Thomas Jefferson University in the US.
They looked at mice who were overfed, and saw that the small intestines of these mice had stopped producing uroguanylin.
The receptors for uroguanylin that reside in the brain were intact, and had even increased in number, but hormone itself was no longer being made, suggesting that overeating had caused its production to shut down, research said.