Research
Hormonal
Gastric bypass surgery reduces circulating ghrelin levels significantly, which may contribute to weight loss by suppressing appetite, although the mechanism is not fully understood.
For those undergoing gastric bypass, the significant drop in ghrelin may help manage hunger long-term. This hormonal change is a key factor in the surgery's efficacy, alongside the physical restriction of stomach size.
ModerateSupportsMEDIUM confidence
In gastric bypass patients, ghrelin secretion was found to be reduced by up to 77% compared with the normal-weight control group... The mechanism for decreasing circulating ghrelin in gastric bypass patients is not known.
Why this rating
Based on a single cited study (104) comparing gastric bypass patients to controls.
Source
Biological, Physiological, and Pharmacological Aspects of Ghrelin
Hiroshi Hosoda et al. · Journal of Pharmacological Sciences · 2006
DOI 10.1254/jphs.crj06002x
narrative_reviewCited 203×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Ghrelin is an endogenous peptide hormone that stimulates food intake and growth hormone secretion, with its circulating levels inversely correlated with energy balance (increasing during fasting/starvation and decreasing during feeding/obesity).Good
- Ghrelin stimulates food intake and growth hormone release primarily through the vagus nerve and hypothalamic pathways (NPY/AgRP neurons), rather than solely by crossing the blood-brain barrier.Good
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