Research
Hormonal
Ghrelin is the first gut hormone shown to stimulate food intake, and its levels peak before meals, acting as a hunger signal.
Ghrelin is a hormone that signals hunger to the brain. Its levels rise before meals, stimulating appetite and gastric emptying. Understanding this pre-meal hunger signal can help individuals anticipate and manage their food intake more effectively.
GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Novel findings on the hormone ghrelin ... are challenging this doctrine. Ghrelin is unique as the first gut hormone shown to stimulate food intake [67]. ... Ghrelin levels peak sharply in anticipation of a meal in humans as well as experimental animals [87], resulting in stimulation of both feeding and gastric emptying [88] ... and may thus provide a meal initiation signal.
Why this rating
Based on human and animal studies cited in the review.
Source
Brain regulation of food intake and appetite: molecules and networks
Christian Broberger · Journal of Internal Medicine · 2005
DOI 10.1111/j.1365-2796.2005.01553.x
narrative_reviewCited 246×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
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