Welcome words

1. Introduction

Ghrelin, produced mainly in the stomach, is an appetite stimulating hormone, an powerful orexigenic bio-molecule; i.e. it triggers the need for food, our appetite. It has been discovered in 1999 by Japanese scientists, but largely spread-out by British groups, and so then it has been a quite important piece for taking in the workings of feeding patterns and behaviors.

Ghrelin is an amino acid peptide, related to growth hormone, which is secreted primarily in the stomach but is found throughout the gastrointestinal system and even in the hypothalamus and amygdala, among other sites, such as the heart and pancreas. Some claims that the name comes from Growth Hormone releasing, by shorting and gathering, we encounter ghrelin. But exactly how ghrelin exerts its effect is not clear, neither how it is produced, e.g. the complete profile for triggering ghrelin activation and inhibition.

2. The complex process of eating

We can say that eating is one of the simplest activities, it is not necessary being an Einstein for eating with style. Nonetheless, within the body, it is a quite complex process, maybe amongst the most complex ones, given that we are still try to understand it properly for treating medical conditions such as obesity.

Ghrelin receptors in the brain

Ghrelin receptors in the brain
This picture presents the ghrelin receptors in the brain. Source: Nelson and Cox (2004, p.912)

Ghrelin mathematical model (current)

Ghrelin mathematical model (current)
This is the current model for ghrelin

Aim

Aim
This is the general picture of what is chased

Future works

Future works

Likely not for now

- Image processing;

Hypothesized relationship between ghrelin and tastants

Hypothesized relationship between ghrelin and tastants
Hypothesized relationship between ghrelin and tastants. See https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281683781_Taste_and_the_regulation_of_food_intake_It%27s_not_just_about_flavor/reviews/168301

Posts

Below are the posts, organized in order of publication, FPLS (First Published, Last Shown)

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Taste and the regulation of food intake: insights and comments

A modest archetypal of satiation is that it boils down primarily to two categories of signals transmitted from the gastrointestinal tract to the brain: stomach and intestine sensing and metabolism. Novel investigations endow us with the view that an extension of this traditional model is conceivable and called for, wherein intestinal satiation is the byproduct not only from signals related to the caloric content of ingested nutrients, but also from noncaloric properties of ‘tastant molecules’ in foodstuff. On this paper we discuss a recently published paper regarding the impact of tastants (e.g., noncaloric substance widely used as taste enhancers) on hunger and food intake. We gather the in vivo results (nasoduodenal infusions of tastants) with a recently developed mathematical model for ghrelin by the author and co-workers and we successfully replicate in silico part of the findings. The key results from the abovementioned paper and replicated herein is that tastant can inhibit hunger; with different levels of impact, umami being the strongest one, and the union of them being even stronger.

Full text.

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