Relationship Between Hunger‐Satiety Feelings and Various Metabolic Parameters in Women with Obesity During Controlled Weight Loss

OBJECTIVE: Satiety plays an important role in weight control. The meaning of fasting hormone levels and satiety feelings, and how post-absorptive changes after meals high in carbohydrate regulate appetite remains to be demonstrated. RESEARCH METHODS AND PROCEDURES: Prospective metabolic study with 25 non-diabetic obese women at the Energy Metabolism Research Unit of the Department of Nutrition Sciences, University of Alabama at Birmingham. We analyzed fasting and postprandial ratings of hunger-satiety and values of various metabolic parameters (serum glucose and insulin, plasma cholecystokinin, respiratory quotient) during controlled weight loss. The postprandial measures were assessed following a test meal providing 320 kcal and yielding a food quotient of 0.89. RESULTS: In the fasting state, there was no correlation between hunger-satiety ratings and any of the measured metabolic parameters. Under postprandial conditions, satiety was positively related to glucose (p=0.002) and insulin (p=0.002) responses to the test meal. In multivariate analysis including glucose, insulin, cholecystokinin, hunger-satiety ratings and respiratory quotient, insulin was the only independent predictor of satiety in the postprandial state. DISCUSSION: These data suggest an association between the endogenous insulin response and feelings of postprandial satiety. Insulin's satiation properties, which could well be mediated by other hormones, may represent a primary factor of food intake regulation after meals relatively high in carbohydrate.