Hunger is a physiological cue that you need more food---but hunger isn’t always dictated by how empty your stomach is. If you’re constantly feeling ravenous, even if you just ate, there might be a bigger issue at play.
What do hormones have to do with hunger?
Hormones are chemical messengers, and they’re responsible for nearly every process within your body---including hunger. There are a couple essential hormones that tell your body when you need to eat and when you’re full:
The biggie is ghrelin, AKA the “hunger” hormone, which is produced by your stomach when it’s empty to help increase food intake. Ghrelin also plays a role in how your body releases insulin, the hormone that helps your body turn food into energy and controls your blood sugar (or glucose) levels, a long-established biomarker of hunger.
On the flip side, leptin, the “satiety” hormone, is produced by your body’s adipose tissue (or fat) to help regulate the long-term balance between your body’s food intake and energy expenditure; it’s the hormone that signals to your brain when you feel full (because you have enough fat stored).
Beyond the major players, there’s neuropeptide Y (NPY) a hormone produced in the brain that stimulates appetite (specifically, your appetite for carbs); glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1), which is secreted in your gut when nutrients enter your intestines to help keep blood glucose levels stable and make you feel full; cholecystokinin (CCK), another “satiety” hormone produced in your gut after a meal that increases the release of leptin; and peptide YY, which is secreted in the small intestine during food intake to manage appetite.
And then there’s cortisol, the “stress” hormone, which is produced by your adrenal glands. It doesn’t just control your body’s stress response; it also helps regulate your body’s metabolism.
Can a hormonal imbalance make you feel constantly hungry?
If any of those hormones are out of whack, it can absolutely lead to hunger issues.
Take ghrelin, for example: The higher your levels of the “hunger” hormone, the hungrier you get. Ghrelin levels usually rise when your stomach is empty and decrease once you’ve eaten. But fasting or long-term calorie restriction (read: dieting) can also increase ghrelin levels, and a rise in ghrelin during diet-induced weight loss was a predictor of weight regain during follow-ups in a 2020 study published in the journal Diabetes, Obesity and Metabolism.
Insulin regulates blood glucose, which comes from the food you eat and is your body’s main source of energy. If your body isn’t responding properly to insulin (that’s called insulin resistance), it produces even more of it---and elevations in insulin can lead to increased hunger, heightened perceived pleasantness of sweet taste, and increased food intake, according to research from the journal Health Psychology.
Leptin levels can also get too high, because the amount of leptin in your blood is directly proportional to the amount of adipose tissue (body fat) you have. Too much leptin can create a lack of sensitivity to the hormone, which is known as leptin resistance---and if you’re resistant to leptin, you won’t experience feeling “full,” so you’ll constantly feel hungry and likely overeat. (FYI: A lack of sleep has been found to trigger increased levels of ghrelin and decreased levels of leptin, resulting in increased hunger and appetite.)
Finally, there’s a reason for the term “stress eating”: During short-term stress, you might actually lose your appetite, but chronic stress---and consistently elevated cortisol levels---can lead to increased appetite, cravings for sugar, and weight gain. Stress was related to various indices of increased drive to eat, including disinhibited eating, binge eating, and more frequent intake of hyperpalatable food (think: chips, hamburgers, and soda) in a large-scale study published in the journal Appetite.
What your blood work can tell you
When you’re trying to figure out why you’re hungry all the time or why you can’t lose weight, the last place you think to look is at your own blood work. But that’s a mistake. Your blood can clearly tell you if your hormones are off-kilter---and which ones might be to blame for your insatiable appetite.
Base’s Diet Testing Plan includes a number of at-home tests that not only look for certain nutrient deficiencies, but measure things like your cholesterol and lipids, which assesses the balance of fats and sugars in your diet and provides insights into your metabolic health. Testing also assesses your percentage of hemoglobin attached to sugar --- that’s directly related to what you eat. HbA1c indicates your glucose levels during the last 3 months.
Remember, though, an unstoppable appetite isn’t just about the food you consume. Base’s Stress Testing Plan can measure your cortisol to see if your habit of overeating may be emotional, along with testosterone levels, which affect how fat is stored, and thyroid hormone levels, which play a role in metabolism and may be causing you to eat more without even realizing it. And the Sleep Testing Plan will analyze your levels of melatonin, your sleep hormone, might show that you’re overindulging because your circadian rhythm (or natural sleep-wake cycle) is messed up.
These tests can be a great way to confirm a reason for your overeating, or to narrow down the culprits if you’re not sure where to start. If you’re really concerned about appetite issues, make sure to schedule an appointment with your doctor.
How to stop always feeling so hungry
Curtailing your appetite starts a healthy, well-balanced diet. Prioritizing protein and fiber at each meal can help you feel more full, lower your hunger hormone levels, and potentially help you eat less at your next meal, according to research published in Current Developments in Nutrition. Skipping meals is also a bad move, in that it increases your ghrelin levels, a study published in
PLoS One determined; six small meals a day is better than two big ones, even if you’re consuming the same number of calories.
And when it comes to meals and snacking, many people are guilty of confusing hunger and thirst. FWIW, people who drank two glasses of water immediately before a meal in a study published in the European Journal of Nutrition ate 22 percent less than those who didn’t drink any water prior to eating.
Another thing that’s at the core of a number of health issues: a good night’s sleep. People who get less than seven to nine hours of sleep tend to experience higher ghrelin levels, more hunger, and less feeling of fullness. Sleep restriction (or getting only four and half hours compared to eight) also led to increases in hunger and appetite in a study published in the journal Sleep.
Stress-management is key here, too. Meditation was shown to reduce cortisol (and stress levels) in a meta-analysis published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research; it also decreased binge eating and emotional eating in a review published in the journal Eating Behaviors.
The good news: These are all healthy habits you should embrace whether or not your appetite is under control. Make them a part of your daily life, and you’ll likely start to feel better no matter what the underlying cause might be.
