Research
Hormonal
Ghrelin is the primary gastric hormone responsible for stimulating appetite (orexigenic effect) by crossing the blood-brain barrier and signaling via vagal afferents, while leptin (primarily from adipose tissue, some from stomach) acts as an anorexigenic signal.
Ghrelin is your stomach's 'hunger hormone,' which rises before meals to stimulate appetite. While it plays a key role, simply trying to block it has not been an effective weight loss strategy so far. Appetite is regulated by a complex interplay of hormones (ghrelin, leptin, CCK, GLP-1) and neural signals.
StrongSupportsVERY_HIGH confidence
Ghrelin is orexigenic (increases appetite) and serum concentrations of this hormone are elevated before a meal and suppressed postprandially. It is produced by endocrine cells in the stomach and regulates appetite by crossing the blood–brain barrier to bind to receptors located on cells in the hypothalamus, as well as by signalling through vagal afferent nerve fibres.
Why this rating
Well-established physiological mechanism with extensive literature support cited in the review.
Source
The stomach in health and disease
Richard H. Hunt et al. · Gut · 2015
DOI 10.1136/gutjnl-2014-307595
narrative_reviewCited 412×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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