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Research Highlights
Hunger Hormone May be Key in Weight Loss
Taken from the Veterans Health Administration Highlights dated May 24, 2002
A study led by a team at the Veterans Affairs (VA) Puget Sound Health Care System and the University of Washington (UW) is the first to document the effects of low-calorie dieting verses gastric bypass surgery. The reason for the difference may hinge on a recently discovered appetite-stimulating hormone, according to an article in the May 23 New England Journal of Medicine.
The study compared blood samples from dieters and gastric-bypass patients and found dramatic differences in the levels of "ghrelin," a hormone secreted by the stomach. The hormone was first identified by Japanese researchers in 1999, and was shown by British scientists last year to trigger appetite in humans—the first known hormone to do this.
The new findings may explain why keeping off excess weight through dieting, exercise or even medication is often a constant uphill battle, whereas obese patients who lose up to 200 pounds or more through gastric bypass surgery tend to keep off the pounds permanently. The study shows that dieting raises ghrelin, while gastric bypass surgery sharply reduces it, almost to undetectable levels. The research is the first to document the effects of low-calorie dieting versus gastric bypass surgery on ghrelin levels.
According to lead author David E. Cummings, M.D., the findings not only shed light on what may be an underlying reason for the success of gastric bypass surgery, but raise the possibility of a new generation of safer, more effective weight-loss drugs.
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