Integration of Current Views on the Regulation of Hunger and Appetite

Abstract

Professor E. F. Adolph' has said: "Regulations in organisms are maintenances of relative constancies." What is it that is being "regulated" or "maintained relatively constant" as regards our subject of hunger and appetite? I submit that it is mainly the body's content of nutrients. Under special circumstances, regulation of other factors, such as body-heat content or bodywater content, may take precedence but, normally, it is probably nutrient stores that are being conserved. Although all classes of nutrients are involved in this regulatory process, for the present discussion we shall confine our considerations to the energy-yielding nutrients; that is, we shall be concerned with calorie balance.The store of energy in the healthy adult animal body remains relatively constant over long periods. It follows that the rates of energy intake and expenditure are essentially equal. The regulatory process which tends to keep them equal involves psychic phenomena, hunger, and appetite. Our interest in these psychic phenomena is from the point of view of how they are related to this regulatory process.We are dealing, then, with the psychic adjuncts of a physiological regulatory mechanism and are a t once beset with the problem of whether these psychic states are an overflow into consciousness of an essentially automatic bodily process or are indispensable in the regulatory mechanism. In other words, "TO what extent are hunger and appetite merely an awareness that the regu- 76Here, a useful analogy might be drawn between hunger and pain.

Studies on the Physiology of Hunger. I. The Effect of Intravenous Administration of Glucose on Gastric Hunger Contractions in Man 1

“…Certain observations from clinical medicine support this view; depletion of available carbohydrate offers an explanation of hunger in such diverse conditions as starvation, unregulated diabetes mellitus, cortisone therapy and insulin hypoglycemia. The extensive experimental data relating to this problem have been reviewed by Mayer (7,24) and by Grossman (25).…”

Perception of hunger and satiety induced by 2-deoxy-D-glucose in anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa

“…The physiological control of food intake in man is complex and not fully understood, but probably depends on several regulatory mechanisms (Grossman, 1955;Morley, 1980;Booth, 1981; Le Magnen, 1983). Hypoglycemia or intracellular glucopenia stimulates feeding behavior in most mammals (Smith & Epstein, 1969).…”

Injections into the duodenum and the induction of satiety in the rat.

“…The present experiments are concerned with satiety signals which could originate in the intestines. If intestinal signals exist, it may be that they also play a role in a scheme such as that proposed by Janowitz and Grossman (Grossman, 1955).…”