On Eating - a row of smithereens about hunger and eating No 04

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oranges, apples, pineapples, mandarines , bananas c ignazwrobel

Yesterday: salivary production.

Today: insulin and glucose.

Whatever we may eat, the chemistry in our digestive system is set to produce the energy supplier number one our muscle cells are able to process: glucose.

Glucose is like the wood in a woodfire, like the fuel oil in the central heating of our house (outside temperatures today in Holzkirchen, Bavaria, Germany, Europe: -1,5 degree Celsius central heating very welcome), like the gas in our cars.

The glucose is being produced by splitting in our food long molecule chains into shorter ones or extracting glucose from food.

Let´s assume we ate, our digestive system produced glucose, now the fuel is in our system- our regulatory system.

But where is it? The walls of our intestine are permeable.

The glucose diffuses through theses walls into the medium available everywhere in our body, the medium that reaches every single cell of our body: our blood.

So we might imagine what happens.

The blood is a delivery system not only for nicotin, but also for glucose. Assume we ate, assume a tankful of glucose rushes through our blood vessels, but – what next?

The glucose molecules still haven´t found the combustion chambers in our muscle cells, the so called mitochondria. Mitochondria are like the combustion chambers in our cars (remember? engine, cylinders, valves, fuel, explosion: turning high energy liquid into motion energy of the piston rods…. ).

The glucose in our blood needs a door opener into our muscle cells: the door opener is a hormone called insulin.

Back to the fact our system is a regulatory circuit system. Our intestine releases the complete amount of glucose into our blood. No regulation here, no caring for tolerable amounts of glucose, the whole load.

Now insulin has to do it´s job.

Think of insulin as of transport ships. These transport ships patrol in our blood and take glucose as cargo on board, then sailing to our cells, open the doors and help glucose get into our cells.

now comes the trap:

The thing is, if there´s a very rich disposability of glucose, insulin addresses in first place another type of cells: our body fat storage cells.

Tomorrow: insulin and hunger.

On Eating - a row of smithereens about hunger and eating No 03

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A shelf filled with country chips, natural chips, oven chips, tortilla chips, taco chips. c ignazwrobel

Last: hypophysis and stomach wall extension reflex

Today: salivary production.

We sit in front of our meal and start eating. With the first bite our mouth has to do three major things.

The first is biting and chewing, the second is a task for the salivary glands in our cheeks: with the first bite the glands start releasing saliva into our mouth.

Saliva is good for two purposes: first it helps to make food slippery. Food has to glide down our esophagus and everybody who once tried to gulp a dry tablet will certainly remember that the tablet got stuck in the throat.

The second task is to fulfil the first step of digestion. An enzyme called ptyalin (nice word) starts to split long chains of molecules into shorter ones.

Now comes the trap:

there´s food that is challenging our salivary glands to continue with the production of saliva. ... for example when eating tacos or chips.

To swallow tacos or potatoe chips we need to change consistency of the food from dry and prickly with hard edges to a swallowable form: liquid. So far so good.

The trap is: as long as the salivary production of our glands is running our hypophysis doesn´t stop sending the message: you are still hungry. More food intake, please.

The rest is subject to your imagination….

Tomorrow: our regulatory circuit and insulin

On Eating - a row of smithereens about hunger and eating No 02

a shelf with bunches of grapes, different kinds of apples, bananas, lemon, sweet pepper. c ignazwrobel

Last: the regulatory circuit

Today: steering mechanisms of the regulatory circuit.

Part one: our hypophysis.

Our brain has – seen from a pov of biological development starting from ape arriving to human being (as Charles Darwin stated against many protests) – parts of different age.

Parts, manhood developed earlier and younger parts. The oldest part of our brain is the hypophsis.

It is a small gland deep in the middle of our brain.

http://www.pezz.ch/fileadmin/images/querschnittgehirnhormone.jpg

The hypophysis is, so to speak the BIOS http://benchmarkreviews.com/images/articles/introduction_to_overclocking/BIOS-PC-Health-Status.jpg of our body. - The system that drives all operating systems of our body.

One of these systems is steering the equilibrium of our energy level by steering the feeling of hunger.

The hypophysis is steering our feeling of hunger and feeling of satiety.

As the hypophysis has its place in the head and eating takes place in a completely different part of our body, there has to be – so to speak – a telephone line between our stomach, the place where food intake is being processed in the first place and the “steering wheel”, the hypophysis.

The feedback system telling the hypophysis that enough food has been taken on board during one meal is a reflex. The reflex the walls of our stomach are being extended. An extension reflex of our stomach walls.

If the walls of our stomach send a message about a certain amout of having been extended, the hypophysis says: stop eating. We´ve got enough energy intake for the next few hours.

...and thus the feeling of hunger terminates.

Tomorrow: hypophysis and twenty minutes.

yet on our list: physical acitvity, the release of adrenalin - and the feeling of hunger

On Eating - a row of smithereens about hunger and eating No 01

Bildquelle gefro.de a plate with zucchini, carrotes basil, white sauce and red meat

Hunger is a driving force in our lifes making us getting up and go searching for something that soothens the pain of desire: food.

The thing is our body is set to do absolutely EVERYTHING to keep our system alive and in balance.

The balance of our system is a regulatory circuit. We have to pursue input of high value energy in form of food and output in form of low energy material, stool.

In the middle, in between, mother nature wants the energy level of the system as constant as possible. To keep up that constancy we have to take in high value energy in form of food as soon as the balance of the system starts tipping over, which is several times a day.

To make us doing so nature installed hunger as the driving force to develop a wish to eat.

Tomorrow: the nature of hunger, which mechanisms makes hunger emerge?

Two hints: blood sugar, insulin and the size of our stomach.