Can Overeating Really Switch Off Your "Full" Hormone?

Hormones play a very important role in all areas of your body. We have all heard of insulin, ghrelin, and leptin but have you ever heard of the hormone uroguanylin? Most people haven’t! Uroguanylin is an appetite-suppressant hormone much like leptin except that it is secreted by your stomach cells, and by doing this, in turn, tells your brain to stop eating. Investigation of this hormone has just started by scientists in relation to appetite, calorie burning, and even the generation of “brown” fat in your body. Brown fat is the only kind of fat that is metabolically active and actually burns white fat! That is the fat we want to get rid of.
Scientists found that overeating calories actually stops the production of uroguanylin. In other words, even though you are full you won’t know it because you don’t get the “hey stop eating signals”, from your body. Because your body doesn’t know that it is full, this can promote even more eating because you can’t stop, you think that you are hungry. This will lead to more and more eating and then to obesity and metabolic syndrome. This is an example of epigenetics “gone wrong”. Epigenetics is the switching of genes “on” or “off” by environmental signals. In this case, overconsuming calories switches off the gene that is supposed to tell your stomach cells to make this appetite-suppressant hormone. Too many calories, less uroguanylin, more overeating (Kim et at., 2016) The gene is called GUCY2C. But, with this gene inactive, overeating can lead to even more overeating.
When ketogenic dieting isn’t for everyone (or how fat becomes lethal, even without weight gain), low-carb dieting (AKA “ketogenic” dieting) may actually work for some. However, scientists are now beginning to suspect that for those born with certain gene variants, going keto could be lethal. According to new research, fat metabolism during ketosis can go haywire in those who are obese, type 1 diabetic, or born with genetic mutations that affect fat oxidation. In a recent study, mutated mice couldn’t handle the high-fat intake, and the ketogenic diet eventually killed them. Yes, the diet dissolved all fat tissue throughout their bodies. But their livers were enlarged with fat molecules.
Fat molecules freed up by fat cells are sent to the liver for burning. However, the livers of mutated mice couldn’t burn those fat molecules, they just absorbed them and got too fat to function.
The truth is that some people can metabolize fats better than others, and your genetics play a role in that. Eskimos can tolerate high amounts of fat without issues. But if you can’t metabolize high-fat intake properly, or have tolerance problems, please apply caution. You wouldn’t want to follow a trend to fix something, yet break something else!