The power of Appetite

One of the strongest temptations that man has to meet is upon the point of appetite. between the mind and the body there is a mysterious and wonderful relation. they react upon each other. To keep the body in a healthy condition to develop its strength, that every part of the living machinery may act harmoniously, should be the first study of our life. To neglect the body is to neglect the mind. It cannot be to the glory of God for his children to have sickly bodies or dwarfed minds. In other ways appetite is the desire to eat food, sometimes due to hunger. Appealing foods can stimulate appetite even when hunger is absent, though appetite can be greatly reduced by satiety.

At the end of the lesson you will be able to:

1. Understand the connection of appetite and the body

2. Identify some factors that affect appetite 

3. Make research on appetite disorder

https://bigpictureeducation.com/anatomy-appetite 

The anatomy of appetite

What actually is appetite? And why do some people become severely obese while others are able to maintain a stable weight without effort? Jennifer Trent Staves talks to two researchers in the field to digest the topic

Eat to live: it sounds simple. The digestive system runs from the mouth, down the oesophagus to our stomach and intestines, where food is absorbed for energy or the waste material passed.

But a look around at the various body shapes, different palates and increasing waistlines of the global population implies that something much more subtle is at work. According to World Health Organization (WHO) figures, globally in 2014 more than 1.9 billion adults (39 per cent) were overweight and more than 600 million (13 per cent) were obese, with 41 million children under the age of 5 being overweight or obese too. And, WHO fears, these figures are likely to increase in future, as while the problem is concentrated in high-income countries, low- and middle-income countries are beginning to experience the crisis as well.

“We have a sophisticated system for controlling our appetite and our weight,” explains Dr Sadaf Farooqi, Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellow at the University of Cambridge, “and appetite is really the body’s system for what we eat and how we eat. What we prefer to eat.”

This sophisticated system involves not only the gut but also the brain and is influenced by our genetic make-up and environment. The way in which these parts work, separately and together, and how to optimise them for an ideal appetite is the focus of intense research by Farooqi and other researchers.

See an annotated image on the anatomy of appetite.

Gut

The gut is at the core of understanding appetite, as the image of a full belly after a meal attests. The stomach, pancreas and intestines are key players, secreting hormones to tell you to eat more or less. When you are hungry, your stomach will produce ghrelin, a hormone that encourages you to eat more. Or, once you’ve eaten enough, the pancreas will secrete insulin, which tells your body to eat less. These are just two of the potent cocktail of hormones that, in theory, tailor our appetite.

The concept of being full – or satiated – is an important one in appetite research. “Satiety is actually lack of appetite and follows eating,” says Professor Steve Bloom of Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London. He has been one of the first recipients of Wellcome’s Seeding Drug Discovery awards, which focus on finding molecules that can be developed into drugs.

“In our research, having found that there were specific hormones which switched off appetite, we wanted to make them useful for controlling appetite in people who are trying to control their weight,” he explains.

Using these hormones to help reduce appetite is the focus of Bloom and his research team’s work: “When you see people suffering from obesity, really trying to lose weight, suffering from nasty diseases that are a consequence of being overweight, you want to help them.”

“That’s why my team works on an appetite-reduction medication. If we succeed in our research, we should be able to make obesity a thing of the past,” he says. 

Brain

The gut may produce these hormones, but it’s the brain that interprets the signals. Bloom says: “If we want to control appetite, we have to look both at the gut and at the brain. It’s the gut that tells the brain to stop eating, but it’s the brain that does the stopping.”

The control centre for appetite is the brain, agrees Farooqi. “It will govern how you eat and how much energy you burn up, on a day-to-day basis and over a long period of time. The brain pulls in things you see, smell, taste, hear.” The brain, like the gut, produces its own hormones both to encourage and inhibit appetite. The hormones MCH and NPY, which are produced by the hypothalamus, can block pain signals, such as a feeling of fullness, and encourage eating. The hypothalamus also secretes melanocyte-stimulating hormones, which can slow down appetite.

But there is still much to understand about the brain, as it is not simply a straightforward mechanism for passing signals along. “Our brain also pulls in things you’ve learnt about to determine how we eat and what we eat,” explains Farooqi. So personal memories of food, both good and bad, and emotions around eating that are individual to a person, are stored in the brain. How these influences affect appetite are yet to be completely understood.

Genes

The gut and brain may be working in tandem to control appetite, but our genetic make-up is crucial to whether this appetite is healthy.

In some cases, eating too much – and consequently obesity – cannot be controlled by the person alone.

“We know that for all of us, regardless of our body weight, whether we’re slim, overweight or severely obese, 40–70 per cent of our weight is determined by genetic factors,” explains Farooqi. “It determines the weight that we end up at, in a given environment.”

She and her team are working with a cohort of over 3,500 children to understand the causes of severe obesity where conventional methods of understanding and treating obesity have been unsuccessful.

Many of these children were unable to stop eating through any usual method – and either the children themselves, or their parents, were blamed for ‘causing’ the obesity. Farooqi has even seen families subjected to child protection orders.

Her team has been able to find new genes, mutations and variants which are affecting appetite.

“In one case finding a gene has already led to a new treatment. This disorder is called leptin deficiency and the lack of this gene results in a lack of a hormone called leptin in the blood, which then should normally control your appetite.” Giving these children injections of leptin has seen their body weight plummet.

“Finding these genes has allowed us to intervene from a medical point of view and get some of these children off the child protection register.”

But the leptin gene is one of hundreds or perhaps thousands involved in appetite, and she wants to track down the other genes that could be responsible for insatiability: “We’ve found a lot of genes over the last ten years, but there are an awful lot more to find.” Indeed, in her cohort, only 8 per cent of patients have a form of obesity that has – to date – been explained.

Environment

Obesity, back in prehistoric times or even up to 30 years ago, wasn’t the epidemic it is today. But if our brains, our guts and our genes haven’t altered significantly in the last three decades, what’s responsible for the rise in appetite?

The food that we’re eating has changed. Not only is our food more processed and higher-calorie, it is also easier to access than ever before, which is affecting the other factors involved in appetite.

“Food is more easily available, cheaply available, and the kind of food we now eat has more calories than say 30–50 years ago. Even if you are slim and have a normal appetite, the number of calories you’re taking in is probably more than your mother may have taken in,” explains Farooqi.

“We’re a species who’ve overcome a lot of famines. In the times of hunter-gatherers, every four or five years, a third of the population would die of famine, so it was really necessary to grab that last crust of bread and stuff your mouth, so to speak,” says Bloom.

“We’re intrinsically wanting to eat all the time because any minute, there might be another famine. And also if you didn’t eat in the middle of the summer, you might not survive the winter. We have an appetite too big for our needs in a civilised society where there’s a supermarket at every corner.”

Both Bloom and Farooqi agree that environment works with our genes and can’t act alone. “People who are obese have a genetic propensity to eat too much. But they won’t eat too much if there isn’t plenty of food available,” Bloom adds.

He advocates controlling the outside problem with a medication to suit our environment: “If the present approach to treatment of appetite works well – which I think it will – obesity will become a thing of the past.”

But in a constantly changing environment there are still questions left to answer. “There are really important questions out there about what’s in the food that may be making us feel more hungry, or more full,” says Farooqi. “Certain types of food seem to make you feel more hungry. And that’s a really major challenge that we don’t yet fully understand.”

On the link below, research on the appetite disorder and come up with a graphic organizer and 

send your output in my gmail account. 

( danilodarug5@gmail.com )

https://www.msdmanuals.com/home/digestive-disorders/symptoms-of-digestive-disorders/loss-of-appetite

GRAPHIC ORGANIZER RUBRIC 

Using the following criteria, choose the appropriate number from the following scale that reflects the student’s work.

1 = Weak |2 = Moderately Weak | 3 = Average | 4 = Moderately Strong |5 = Strong

                                                                                                                       total:

 To indulge the taste at the expense of health is a wicked abuse of the senses. Those who engage in any species of intemperance, either in eating or drinking, waste their physical energies and weaken moral power. They will feel the retribution which follows the transgression of physical law.

The Redeemer of the world knew that the indulgence of appetite would bring physical debility and so deaden the perceptive organs that sacred and eternal things would not be discerned. Christ knew that the world was given up to gluttony, and that this indulgence would pervert the moral powers. If the indulgence of appetite was so strong upon the race that, in order to break its power, the divine Son of God, in behalf of man, was required to fast nearly six weeks, what a work is before the Christian in order that he may overcome even as Christ overcame! The strength of the temptation to indulge perverted appetite can be measured only by the inexpressible anguish of Christ in that long fast in the wilderness.

Christ knew that in order to successfully carry forward the plan of salvation He must commence the work of redeeming man just where the ruin began. Adam fell by the indulgence of appetite. In order to impress upon man his obligations to obey the law of God, Christ began His work of redemption by reforming the physical habits of man. The declension in virtue and the degeneracy of the race are chiefly attributable to the indulgence of perverted appetite. 

A Solemn Responsibility

There is a solemn responsibility upon all, especially upon ministers who teach the truth, to overcome upon the point of appetite. Their usefulness would be much greater if they had control of their appetites and passions, and their mental and moral powers would be stronger if they combined physical labor with mental exertion. With strictly temperate habits, and with mental and physical labor combined, they could accomplish a far greater amount of labor and preserve clearness of mind. If they would pursue such a course, their thoughts and words would flow more freely, their religious exercises would be more energized, and the impressions made upon their hearers would be more marked. 

Intemperance in eating, even of food of the right quality, will have a prostrating influence upon the system and will blunt the keener and holier emotions. Strict temperance in eating and drinking is highly essential for the healthy preservation and vigorous exercise of all the functions of the body. Strictly temperate habits, combined with exercise of the muscles as well as of the mind, will preserve both mental and physical vigor, and give power of endurance to those engaged in the ministry, to editors, and to all others whose habits are sedentary.... 

The Effect of Stimulating Food

Intemperance commences at our tables, in the use of unhealthful food. After a time, through continued indulgence, the digestive organs become weakened and the food taken does not satisfy the appetite. Unhealthy conditions are established, and there is a craving for more stimulating food. Tea, coffee, and flesh meats produce an immediate effect. Under the influence of these poisons, the nervous system is excited, and, in some cases, for the time being, the intellect seems to be invigorated and the imagination to be more vivid. 

Because these stimulants produce for the time being such agreeable results, many conclude that they really need them, and continue their use. But there is always a reaction. The nervous system, having been unduly excited, borrowed power for present use from its future resources of strength. All this temporary invigoration of the system is followed by depression. In proportion as these stimulants temporarily invigorate the system, will be the letting down of the power of the excited organs after the stimulus has lost its force. The appetite is educated to crave something stronger which will have a tendency to keep up and increase the agreeable excitement, until indulgence becomes habit, and there is a continual craving for stronger stimuli, as tobacco, wines, and liquors. The more the appetite is indulged, the more frequent will be its demands and the more difficult of control. The more debilitated the system becomes, and the less able to do without unnatural stimulus, the more the passion for these things increases, until the will is overborne and there seems to be no power to deny the unnatural craving for these indulgences. 

The only safe course is to touch not, taste not, handle not, tea, coffee, wines, tobacco, opium, and alcoholic drinks. The necessity for the men of this generation to call to their aid the power of the will strengthened by the grace of God, in order to withstand the temptations of Satan and resist the least indulgence of perverted appetite, is twice as great as it was several generations ago. But the present generation have less power of self-control than had those who lived then. Those who have indulged the appetite for these stimulants have transmitted their depraved appetites and passions to their children, and greater moral power is required to resist intemperance in all its forms. The only perfectly safe course to pursue is to stand firmly on the side of temperance and not venture in the path of danger. 

The great end for which Christ endured that long fast in the wilderness was to teach us the necessity of self-denial and temperance. This work should commence at our tables and should be strictly carried out in all the concerns of life. The Redeemer of the world came from heaven to help man in his weakness, that, in the power which Jesus came to bring him, he might become strong to overcome appetite and passion and might be victor on every point. 

Many parents educate the tastes of their children and form their appetites. They indulge them in eating flesh meats and in drinking tea and coffee. The highly seasoned flesh meats and the tea and coffee, which some mothers encourage their children to use, prepare the way for them to crave stronger stimulants, as tobacco. The use of tobacco encourages the appetite for liquor, and the use of tobacco and liquor invariably lessens nerve power. 

If the moral sensibilities of Christians were aroused upon the subject of temperance in all things, they could, by their example, commencing at their tables, help those who are weak in self-control, who are almost powerless to resist the cravings of appetite. If we could realize that the habits we form in this life will affect our eternal interests, that our eternal destiny depends upon strictly temperate habits, we would work to the point of strict temperance in eating and drinking. By our example and personal effort we may be the means of saving many souls from the degradation of intemperance, crime, and death. Our sisters can do much in the great work for the salvation of others by spreading their tables with only healthful, nourishing food. They may employ their precious time in educating the tastes and appetites of their children, in forming habits of temperance in all things, and in encouraging self-denial and benevolence for the good of others. 

Results of Indulgence

Notwithstanding the example that Christ gave us in the wilderness of temptation by denying appetite and overcoming its power, there are many Christian mothers, who, by their example and by the education which they are giving their children, are preparing them to become gluttons and winebibbers. Children are frequently indulged in eating what they choose and when they choose, without reference to health. There are many children who are educated gourmands from their babyhood. Through indulgence of appetite they are made dyspeptics at an early age. Self-indulgence and intemperance in eating grow with their growth and strengthen with their strength. Mental and physical vigor are sacrificed through the indulgence of parents. 

REFERENCES

• Gastrointestinal hormones regulating appetite (2006)
• The regulation of appetite (2006)
• Mutations in ligands and receptors of the leptin-melanocortin pathway that lead to obesity (2008)
• Human obesity: a heritable neurobehavioral disorder that is highly sensitive to environmental conditions (2008)
• WHO figures on obesity

FURTHER READING

• Big Picture: Hungry for progress – a video on appetite, genes and drugs
• Big Picture: The anatomy of appetite – annotated image
• https://m.egwwritings.org

            A WebQuest for 9th Grade

              ( The power of Appetite)

                         Designed by

                    Danilo C. Darug Jr

                      BSE-3C PEHMA

                                                                                                    danilodarug5@gmail.com