The Food Ingredient That Zaps Appetite

Controlling your appetite is a big part of losing pounds and keeping them off. Researchers at the Université de Lyon in France have found the way in which one particular nutrient plays a key role in the communication between the brain and intestines that tells you to stop eating.

That nutrient is protein. When you eat foods with protein, enzymes break up the protein into peptides that block receptors on the walls of the portal vein, a major blood vessel that shunts blood from the gut. As a result, the peptides send signals to the brain that cause other nerve signals to travel back to the gut telling it to release glucose. The release of glucose kills your appetite.

"These findings explain the satiety effect of dietary protein, which is a long-known but unexplained phenomenon," says senior author of the study Dr. Gilles Mithieu. "They provide a novel understanding of the control of food intake and of hunger sensations, which may offer novel approaches to treat obesity in the future."