Ghrelin, carbs, and hunger
 

I was sent a link to this article:
http://www.myhealthnewsdaily.com/se...ght-loss-1078/7
which contained this suggestion:

Dieting commandment: Lettuce not eat lonely salads

"Eating just a salad for lunch is probably the worst meal for weight management," said Manuel Villacorta, a San Francisco-based dietician and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. "Have the salad, but have a sandwich with it, or a bowl of bean soup."

As low-calorie as all those salad veggies are, without carbohydrates, they do nothing to knock down levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin, which tells the brain when to eat. Villacorta recommended carb-containing foods such as fruits, grains, pasta and bread.

"If you're not eating enough, you're not lowering your ghrelin amounts, and you'll eat more later," Villacorta said.

It is not clear to me if Villacorta is the one who asserted the specific link between carb intake and ghrelin levels or if the author of the article just made a large leap in logic in the second paragraph and that Villacorta was only referring to calories and not specifically carbohydrates.

Anyway, after reading this article I went to wikipedia to look up ghrelin, but didn't find any information on how carb intake affects ghrelin levels.

I very rarely get hungry since I've been on the low carb regime where about 5% of my total calories are from carbs. I'm wondering what exactly it is that affects ghrelin levels and how so?

and Santa Clause comes every Christmas eve..............


WHAT??

All I know is, when I eat cereal or toast for breakfast I get very hungry in about 1 1/2 to 2 hours. When I eat leftover meat from last night's dinner or eggs and bacon I don't even think about food until at least noon...usually more like 1pm.

Add carbs = get hungry sooner.

Bodybuilders use a certain class of peptides that act just like ghrelin. When they inject it, they grow hungry and eat everything in sight. It's not the primary purpose of this class of drugs but it's a very real effect. Anyway, the point is that ghrelin is a hormone that regulates hunger. There are others like insulin and leptin for example.

Considering that carbs make us eat more, I'd say the "suggestion" you got in your inbox is quite wrong.