Summary: The hypothalamus and weight loss connection is currently one of the hottest areas of research in the weight loss industry. This area is such a hot spot because it gets to the core of why our society is putting on weight at the fastest rate in history! The hypothalamus and weight loss connection explains what drives us uncontrollably towards the Twinkies!
People who are overweight hate being overweight more than anything else in this world, so why can't they resist the Twinkies? Scientists have uncovered the most important discovery in the science of fat loss when they discovered the connection between a gland called the hypothalamus and weight loss.
The Hypothalamus and Weight Loss - An Introduction
The hypothalamus is called the "Master Gland" which is responsible for secreting hormones that regulate such things as temperature, emotions, thirst and hunger. This gland is located just above a primitive area of the central nervous system called the brain stem. The hypothalamus is likely the reason why will power is no match for the Twinkies.
Picture this...Before the higher brain developed we were driven by two needs, reproduction and survival. The biggest threat to our survival was not the lions, tigers or bears, it was starvation. As we evolved, we developed very powerful internal mechanisms to motivate us to seek out food and make it easy for our bodies to store energy as fat. There really was no evolutionary need for a system that made the body efficient at ridding our bodies of the squishy, life saving material that jiggles around our bellies and thighs. Today life is very different than that of our ancestors and the body's systems get confused. These mechanisms were never designed to function in the food abundant society that we live in today. We are going to explore the impact of the hypothalamus and weight loss in this section and many other articles in this site.
Now let's get to the connection between the hypothalamus and weight loss. I have great news, you are not weak! You are reacting exactly the way your body was designed to react...during famine. The trick is correcting the imbalance that is causing the body to think that food is scarce. We use to believe that fat was just a repository of energy, now we know that fat is much, much more. Fat cells are now known to be an endocrine organ that produces hormones which communicate with practically every cell of the body. One such chemical is called leptin. Leptin is believed to be the mother hormone of the body because it has an important role in regulating so many different processes of the body. In order to regulate appetite and metabolism, the leptin must first cross the blood brain barrier where it can signal the brain to produce hormones that cut appetite and stoke metabolism. Leptin occurs in direct proportion to the amount of energy stored in the fat cells, in a nutshell, the more fat the higher the leptin. This is the brain's mechanism for keeping tabs on how close you are to starvation. If there is plenty of leptin then the body knows that there are plenty of fat stores and starvation is not an issue. This flips the hunger switch off and kicks up the metabolism so that you have the focus and energy to frolic and play while propagating the species.
So far so good, now let me tell you where things go wrong. Scientists discovered a morbidly obese breed of rat that just could not stop eating. These rats were quite a site and in many cases could hardly get up to move. When they did testing they discovered that they had a genetic flaw that prevented their bodies from producing leptin. When the scientists discovered this, they were able to manufacture the leptin and injected it into these poor mice. The result was these fat rats lost tremendous amounts of weight almost without effort! Eureka! The scientist believed that they had discovered the solution to the obesity epidemic. They then started giving leptin injections to overweight humans and to their dismay there was no result. After further testing they discovered that obese people do not suffer from low leptin, they suffered from an overload of leptin which signals a condition called leptin resistance. You see, overweight people are resistant to leptin like type II diabetics are resistant to insulin. This is good and bad news.
The bad news is this means that the solution to obesity isn't as simple as giving a daily injection of leptin. The great news is that we can do many things to improve the sensitivity to leptin and thus control our own hunger and metabolism with lifestyle changes! Day by day, researchers are getting more pieces to the puzzle and as this info comes to light I will bring you the news. What an amazing discovery, your conscious “will power” is no match for the power of the unconscious mind and leptin controls the unconscious processes that cause you to seek out food! In this website you will be taught the techniques that allow you to reset the unconscious processes that control appetite and metabolism. So keep reading! We will also discuss the most up-to-date research on exercise, fat, carbohydrates, nutritional supplements and whatever else is relevant to the process of weight loss. There are many books on the subject of leptin and the connection between the hypothalamus and weight loss. I will give some book recommendations throughout the site.
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