Smelling hunger
Human beings are an intricate blend of fascinating physiology, unknowable psychology, and imponderable spirituality. Every so often we uncover a piece of the interconnected circuit that is a human and think that we are a step closer to understanding to entirety of the human entity. We are not going to make that claim today but we are going to say that something pretty darn fascinating about the human makeup has been revealed.
It all revolves around your sense of smell and a hormone called ghrelin. While it sounds like it might be a renegade from a Steven Spielberg film, in fact ghrelin is a hormone intimately involved in your digestive system and your appetite.
Ghrelin is secreted by the cells that line your stomach. It responsible for stimulating your appetite and has been found to increase the appetite before eating and to decrease it afterward. In earlier tests, humans who were injected with ghrelin reported an increase in hunger. In addition, research seems to demonstrate that ghrelin suppresses the utilisation of fat in the adipose tissue. In essence, ghrelin appears to be at least partially responsible for letting the body know when it is hungry and for keeping the body informed about the energy balance of the brain and the body. In the gastrointestinal system, ghrelin stimulates emptying of the gastric system.
While many of its functions are related to digestion, receptors for ghrelin have also been found in the heart and parts of the brain. Now in a new study receptors for ghrelin have been found in the olfactory bulb, the part of your brain involved in processing odours.
Having established this the researchers conducted tests to see how ghrelin might relate to your sense of smell.
They found that when small amounts of ghrelin were given to rats, the animals sniffed more often. Humans given ghrelin infusions were asked to smell unperfumed air, baby powder, banana, tomato, rosemary, or chicken. In all cases the people given ghrelin inhaled more deeply than the people not given ghrelin.
The volunteers reported no difference in aroma pleasantness but were more sensitive to the odour.
So we secrete more ghrelin when we are hungry and we become more sensitive to odours as a result. It makes evolutionary sense as being more sensitive to the smell of what you are about to eat will help you choose the best food. It also makes perfect sense on the dating scene; 90 per cent of first dates are for dinner so you will be hungry when you turn up and that means you will be awash in ghrelin and particularly attuned to sniffing the perfume or cologne your partner has chosen. At some levels life makes perfect sense.
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