Scientists at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil have recently come to the conclusion that growth hormone (GH), besides having all the other functions we already know, also can act straight on the brain to save energy when you are on a strict diet and want to lose weight.
“GH receptors are found in large quantities in muscle and tissue, in the liver, and in organs directly involved in growth metabolism, but we found that the brain is also full of GH receptors. This is entirely new,” Donato said.
“We also found that brain GH is not only involved in growth metabolism but above all, influences the metabolic responses that conserve energy when we’re hungry or on a diet. This discovery, which is also new to science, has important implications in terms of understanding why it’s so hard to lose weight.”
Thus, the researchers discovered that dieting or skipping meals actually activates a rise in hypothalamus GH levels. This in its turn triggers the AgRP neurons, making weight loss not so easy to do and increasing the appetite. That’s the way the leptin functions in our bodies.
We all know that energy maintenance is vital to the body. It was already known that energy conservation mechanism was activated by a peptide hormone leptin. Seems that the other activator is GH.
I think it would be very strange that the body can only depend on one mechanism when dealing with energy conservation.
“One functions as a backup for the other. This is why weight loss treatments based solely on leptin don’t work. The GH mechanism has to be dealt with at the same time,” Donato said.
Full article: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2019-04-growth-hormone-weight-loss.html
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