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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff Mom Never Told You from how Stuff

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Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm

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Speaker 1: Caroline and I'm Kristen. Today we're talking about hormones. Now,

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Speaker 1: hormones have a lot to do with a lot of

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Speaker 1: stuff in our bodies, the decisions we make, how we

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Speaker 1: feel about ourselves and other people and things. But today

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Speaker 1: we're talking about how hormones affect obesity and how obesity

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Speaker 1: in turn affects hormones because it's this weird, weird cycle

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Speaker 1: of eating and appetite and hormones and what it does

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Speaker 1: to your body. And I think this is a good

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Speaker 1: area to talk about because we hear UM a lot

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Speaker 1: about obesity and weight gain and uh, you know, how

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Speaker 1: to lose weight, And there's a lot of blame put

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Speaker 1: on overweight and obese people for just you know, it's

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Speaker 1: their fault because they're just not exercising and they're eating

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Speaker 1: all these things. But uh, if we focus in on

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Speaker 1: this hormonal factor, it adds another dimension to what's going on.

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Speaker 1: Right there are several hormones that have to do with

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Speaker 1: weight and weight distribution. UM. Four of those leptin, insulin,

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Speaker 1: sex hormones, and growth hormone and there is another one

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Speaker 1: called grillin, which we will get into in a little bit.

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Speaker 1: But leptin is produced by your fat cells and secreted

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Speaker 1: into the blood stream, and it's responsible for reducing appetite

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Speaker 1: and controlling how the body manages fat stores. And it

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Speaker 1: turns out, with all this research that's been done into

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Speaker 1: these basically quote unquote hunger hormones, leptin is higher in

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Speaker 1: obese people, so that should reduce their appetite, right, No,

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Speaker 1: it turns out that obese people are not as sensitive

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Speaker 1: to the effects of leptin as our others. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: we'll get more into this, but um pbs Nova also

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Speaker 1: reported on how some animal studies have shown that those

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Speaker 1: lacking a gene that encodes for lepton have weight problems

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Speaker 1: as well. And for podcast listeners or cop on their

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Speaker 1: podcast listening because they're listening to this newest podcast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes they're listening listening. Uh. If left and sounds familiar,

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Speaker 1: it's because we mentioned it our episode on sleepwalking when

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Speaker 1: we were talking about eating in your sleep and the

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Speaker 1: reason why we don't get hungry while we sleep is

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Speaker 1: thanks to lepton that down and then moving on from

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Speaker 1: lepton to insulin. It's very important for the regulation of

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Speaker 1: carbohydrate and fat metabolism and ensures the energy is available

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Speaker 1: for everyday functioning. And where this comes into play with obesity,

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Speaker 1: those insulince signals will often get lost in the tissues,

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Speaker 1: and overweight and obese people are sometimes no longer able

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Speaker 1: to control glucoast levels, which is why there is that

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Speaker 1: strong link between obesity and type two diabetes. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: then we get to sex hormones, which you're like, what

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Speaker 1: sex hormones? What is that? What is sex hormones and

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Speaker 1: high heal? They are? Um, so are estrogens, and our

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Speaker 1: androgens do affect our body fat distribution. And it turns

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Speaker 1: out that in men and post menopausal women, the main

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Speaker 1: site of estrogen production is fat. And so this will

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Speaker 1: actually come into play in a minute when we talk

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Speaker 1: about a new study about testosterone and obese young men.

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Speaker 1: Um But so, changes in sex hormone levels with age

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Speaker 1: are associated with changes in body fat distribution, and a

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Speaker 1: lack of estrogen is associated with weight gain in animal studies,

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Speaker 1: which is going to come into play when we talk

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Speaker 1: in a little bit about menopause. Yeah, we're just giving

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Speaker 1: you a preview of everything. Oh yeah, and then finally

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Speaker 1: we've got growth hormones, which influence your height, bone and

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Speaker 1: muscle building, a metabolism, and again in obese people, growth

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Speaker 1: hormone levels are lower. So to figure out this relationship

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Speaker 1: between hormones and our weight, let's talk some more about

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Speaker 1: lepton because this year in researchers out of the University

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Speaker 1: of Michigan discovered that some people's brain wiring means that

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Speaker 1: they might not respond to lepton or it's counterpart hormone, grillan. So,

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Speaker 1: whereas leptin shuts down your appetite, grillan is the hormone

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Speaker 1: that makes us hungry. Yeah, I love grilling or do

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Speaker 1: we hate it? I don't know. When I'm stuck in

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Speaker 1: a meeting for two hours and my stomach starts growling,

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Speaker 1: I'm like growlin. Oh yeah, I guess that did sound weird.

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Speaker 1: Like I love being hungry. No, I like being hungry

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Speaker 1: because that means it's time that I can That's when

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Speaker 1: I can eat food and to have a semich um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: grellan actually slows the metabolism and decreases the body's ability

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Speaker 1: to burn fat that little bugger um. So researchers in

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Speaker 1: the study looked at why the brain receptor response sable

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Speaker 1: for processing leptin may not work. They found that if

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Speaker 1: you don't have enough, you're likely to have weight problems

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Speaker 1: because again, leptin, you know, turns off your appetite, but

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Speaker 1: if you have too much, it actually impairs the receptor

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Speaker 1: in the brain that deals with it. Yeah, and that's

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Speaker 1: probably goes back to there. There is probably a genetic

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Speaker 1: component to this, and going back to PBS novas and

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Speaker 1: scientists they interview. Now these are separate studies that I'm

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Speaker 1: talking about in terms of the NOVA and the stuff

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Speaker 1: from a University of Michigan. But to understand the genetics

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Speaker 1: of it, some scientists estimate that one in a thousand

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Speaker 1: people carry a mutation for the gene that encodes for

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Speaker 1: leptin and also are obese. So they are thinking that

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Speaker 1: that might be another explanation linked to lepton of why

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Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of people have weight problems. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: talking about these receptors and leptin, the receptor has to

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Speaker 1: quote unquote legs that's swivel. See again we're getting into

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Speaker 1: sexy things. They have legs that swivel until they encounter

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Speaker 1: leptin in the brain. It turns out, though that the

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Speaker 1: receptors of overweight people might be lacking those legs, so

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Speaker 1: the leptin can't actually bind to the receptors. So they're

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Speaker 1: getting kind of a picture of how this works. And

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Speaker 1: Alan Saltiel, director of University of Michigan's Life Sciences Institute,

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Speaker 1: says that developing a clear picture of how leptin conbind

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Speaker 1: to its receptor maybe the first step in overcoming leptin

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Speaker 1: resistance and in another bit of good news for leptin research,

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Speaker 1: because the more that they learn about this interaction in

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Speaker 1: our brains, the more they're going to learn about how

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Speaker 1: to probably do some kind of intervention to help people

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Speaker 1: who might be struggling with obesity. Science magazine recently reported

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Speaker 1: on a new research finding that fruit flies also have

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Speaker 1: a quote unquote functional homologue functional homologue of leptin, which

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Speaker 1: is a good thing because fruit flies are super easy

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Speaker 1: to study in the lab and since they have these

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Speaker 1: similar lepton esque receptors going on, then that opens up

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Speaker 1: another potential avenue of research that could service. So thank

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Speaker 1: you fruit fly brains. Um. Well, yeah, so, speaking of

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Speaker 1: all this research with these hormones, should we mess with

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Speaker 1: them if if we find out that one thing triggers

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Speaker 1: another thing or turns off your hunger or whatever should

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Speaker 1: we be poking around in there? U S and Taiwanese

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Speaker 1: researchers in November found that blocking a key gut enzyme

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Speaker 1: that sounds delicious, a key gut enzyme in the hunger response,

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Speaker 1: can reduce the weight gain in mice. So grellan that

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Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, that sounds like a monster of some

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Speaker 1: kind or maybe I'm just thinking of gremlin's Yeah, grellan.

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Speaker 1: So grellen is activated by the enzyme they call it

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Speaker 1: GOAT because it's short for here we go grellan oh

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Speaker 1: assle transferase. Yeah, thank you. Without without this enzyme, GOAT,

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Speaker 1: grellan can't trigger hunger. So the team designed a molecule

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Speaker 1: to block the enzyme, and they ended up reducing weighting

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Speaker 1: in normal mice, but not in mice that were deficient

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Speaker 1: in grellan, suggesting that the effect was due to a

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Speaker 1: lack of activated grillan. So we got a clue there

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Speaker 1: about that grillan turnkey, but we still need to find

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Speaker 1: out more about what's actually going on with that grillan. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Researchers are like, we could maybe do this, but we

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Speaker 1: probably need to find out what it's going to do

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Speaker 1: to you if we start interfering with your hormones. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And I wonder too, because people will eat when they're

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Speaker 1: not hungry. You know. I fantasize about food a lot

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Speaker 1: during the day. God forbid, if I'm near like a

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Speaker 1: or deer of tray or something. Yeah, So I wonder if,

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Speaker 1: like if that's if that would be a similar like hormonally,

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Speaker 1: like if you turn off the grillan, does that turn

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Speaker 1: off that picture of it? Maybe in my brain? Maybe

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Speaker 1: if we turn off the sadness, we won't eat emotionally anymore.

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Speaker 1: All that feelings by uh Now, you mentioned earlier that

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Speaker 1: this hormone weight issue is a two way street um

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Speaker 1: in terms of obesity being linked to lower levels of

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Speaker 1: hormones and specifically those sex hormones with testosterone. This was

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Speaker 1: coming from a study publishing Clinical Endo Chronology in October.

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Speaker 1: A lot of things are happening right now, right now,

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Speaker 1: we're in the thick of it. The study found that

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Speaker 1: obese teenage boys had forty two fifty percent less testosterone

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Speaker 1: than boys of the same age with a normal b M.

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Speaker 1: I that's crazy. Yeah, that's a huge difference. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: that that actually has a lot of um kind of

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Speaker 1: significant connections with development itself. Dr Parish Dan Donna, who's

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Speaker 1: the lead author, said that low test austerone can slow

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Speaker 1: or stop sexual maturation, and he says there's nothing more

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Speaker 1: hurtful than a male not having his maleness. He goes

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Speaker 1: on to say it's alarming because these guys could grow

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Speaker 1: up to be inadequate and sexual performance and also in

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Speaker 1: terms of fertility, all going back to having a really

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Speaker 1: high b m I because the higher the b m I,

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Speaker 1: the lower the concentration of free testosterone that's available to

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Speaker 1: the body. Yeah. And there have been similar studies as

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Speaker 1: well looking at populations of older men. For instance, there

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Speaker 1: was one study publishing Diabetes Care in July eleven that

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Speaker 1: showed that type two diabetes and obesity and older men

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Speaker 1: are linked to a higher rate of hypogonadism, which is

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Speaker 1: financial talk for low testosterone levels. Yeah. And that study

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Speaker 1: goes on to confirm that low testosterone and sexual dysfunction

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Speaker 1: are commonly found in patients with obesity, metabolic syndrome, and

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Speaker 1: type two diabetes. Yeah. And but they also noted the

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Speaker 1: adult gastric bypass patients testosterone levels rebounded, So they're wondering

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Speaker 1: if it's you know, it's still again like chicken and

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Speaker 1: issues of like is it just the weight gain itself?

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Speaker 1: Is there something else going on on a molecular biological

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Speaker 1: level if they need to unravel. Um. But on top

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Speaker 1: of this, research presented of the nineteenth European Congress on

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Speaker 1: Obesity in May found that older over weight men receiving

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Speaker 1: testosterone injections for up to five years to treat erectile dysfunction.

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Speaker 1: This was a side finding. I don't think this was

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Speaker 1: initially what they were looking for, but they found incidentally,

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Speaker 1: uh that they lost more than thirty pounds on average

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Speaker 1: and showed improvements in blood pressure, blood glue close and

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Speaker 1: the LDL levels, the bad cholesterol that we hear a

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Speaker 1: lot of a lot about. Yeah, so there is the

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Speaker 1: connection of you know, testosterone therapy and losing weight. But

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Speaker 1: then you have to ask the question of did they

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Speaker 1: lose weight because they were getting testosterone injections or were

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Speaker 1: the testosterone injections giving them more energy which led them

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Speaker 1: to exercise more. So there's a lot of moving parts here.

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Speaker 1: So the testosterone clearly benefits these people because all of

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Speaker 1: these the blood pressure of the blood glue close, glucose

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Speaker 1: is all lowered, but maybe they're exercising more too, right.

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Speaker 1: And then the same time as doctors are uncovering this

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Speaker 1: research about how these low testosterone levels are happening in

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Speaker 1: the growing population of overweight and abuse boys, then you know,

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Speaker 1: I can I can imagine if you are one of

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Speaker 1: these scientists that this must seem like a huge puzzle

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Speaker 1: to unravel. But let's talk about the lady folk. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: we have hormones too, Yeah, yeah we do. Who man

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Speaker 1: um Now those testosterone treatments were given to older men.

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Speaker 1: Let's talk about hormones and older women. Menopause. Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: there's this idea and I've just always thought of this

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Speaker 1: as being true, also the idea that once you hit

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Speaker 1: menopause you gain a lot of weight. That is a

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Speaker 1: factor of getting older because you're obviously your metabolism the slowing.

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Speaker 1: But there's this new study again October and what happened,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, an obesity research explosion. This is the season.

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Speaker 1: But so the International Menopause Society had a study that

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Speaker 1: shows that menopause actually doesn't result in weight gain, but

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Speaker 1: because of the lowered estrogen, those adjustments are linked to

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Speaker 1: a difference in fat distribution that increases your belly fat,

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Speaker 1: your your donut, your life preserver, spare tire, spare tire. Yes,

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Speaker 1: So they reviewed studies from n to the present and

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Speaker 1: reviewed all that they had to say, found that weight

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Speaker 1: gain is due to non hormonal factors, typically a consequence

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Speaker 1: of environmental factors in aging. So it's not a change

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Speaker 1: in the fact that we have less testosterone after menopause,

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Speaker 1: are less estrogen, thank you after menopause, and so it

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Speaker 1: re jiggers our body fat accumulation. Right, because we mentioned

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Speaker 1: earlier in the introduction in the introduction talking about the

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Speaker 1: different hormones that affect weight and weight distribution, and sex

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Speaker 1: hormones have more to do with body fat distribution. So

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Speaker 1: things are just traveling around your body. Yeah. And also

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Speaker 1: as if hot flashes, etcetera. Isn't enough to deal with

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Speaker 1: during menopause, they did find that estrogen therapy helps the

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Speaker 1: whole central abdominal fat accumulation. Now, so there's that there's

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Speaker 1: one thing to look forward to, one glimmer of hope. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So while all of this like fat moving activity is happening,

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Speaker 1: happening during menopause, your estrogen receptors which are in the hypothalamus.

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Speaker 1: They serve as a master switch to control food intake,

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Speaker 1: energy expenditure, and body fat distribution. Like we said, when

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Speaker 1: the receptors are destroyed, researchers found out the animals in

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Speaker 1: this in this adorable animal study immediately began to eat

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Speaker 1: more food, burn less energy, and hack on pounds. So

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Speaker 1: there is you know, we talked about how menopause won't

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Speaker 1: necessarily make you fat, but there is stuff going on

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Speaker 1: in your brain with the estrogen when when things are

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Speaker 1: not hooking up correctly, you might be a little more sluggish.

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Speaker 1: So it sounds like with all the research that we've

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Speaker 1: talked about, really it's our brains are making it's fat.

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Speaker 1: I mean, my brain wants me to eat cupcakes all

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Speaker 1: the time. I mean, yeah, that is like a total oversimplification.

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Speaker 1: There are plenty of environmental factors, but it is I mean,

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Speaker 1: I guess it's it's good to um to understand more

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Speaker 1: about the brains role and uh for instance too, just

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Speaker 1: to drive home how how the brain does play that

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Speaker 1: brain does play such a huge part um sleep sleep. Plus,

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Speaker 1: this is coming from a study from two thousand four

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Speaker 1: out of Stanford. I was found it Sleepluss leads to

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Speaker 1: higher levels of hormone that trigger appetite grilling, and it

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Speaker 1: lowers our levels of lepton, leading to a higher b M.

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Speaker 1: I and I would assume that if you're getting shorter

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Speaker 1: amounts of sleep, if you're only sleeping for a few hours,

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Speaker 1: then sure that's probably gonna trigger you're grilling because you

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Speaker 1: have to keep your body going, so your body's like

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Speaker 1: more fuel please. Yeah. The study found that there was

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Speaker 1: a fourteen point nine increase in growling and a fifteen

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Speaker 1: point five decrease in lepton and people who consistently slept

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Speaker 1: for five hours compared with those who slept for eight.

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Speaker 1: And all this was gonna do is make me go

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Speaker 1: into a panic at night and be like sleep sleep

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Speaker 1: sleep false, Like no, no, because I'm not getting my

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Speaker 1: eight hours. Yeah, and that research from Stanford confirmed in

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Speaker 1: earlier study finding that people who sleep only two to

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Speaker 1: four hours per night, also, I don't know how you

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Speaker 1: do that are seventy three percent more likely to be obese.

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Speaker 1: And that probably has to do a lot with that

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Speaker 1: lepton grilling switcheroo happening. Yeah, exactly. There's also this interesting

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Speaker 1: study that was in Nature in January about exercise and yes,

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Speaker 1: of course we all know that exercise helps us lose weight,

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Speaker 1: get in shape. It you know, makes us healthier. But

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Speaker 1: a newly discovered hormone, which is called PGC one, is

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Speaker 1: produced in response to exercise. So mice bread to produce

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Speaker 1: huge amounts of this hormone in their muscles are typically

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Speaker 1: resistant to age related obesity and diabetes, much as people

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Speaker 1: who regularly exercise are. So exercise is good for our brain,

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Speaker 1: which then promotes these good for our body hormone levels. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what's happening is that the more you exercise and then

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Speaker 1: you start pumping out this PGC one that actually bumps

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Speaker 1: up the expression of a protein that enters the bloodstream,

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Speaker 1: travels to fat cells, says High, turns regular fat cells

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Speaker 1: into brown fat cells, which are metabolically active as opposed

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Speaker 1: to the inert fat store houses known as your white fat. So,

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Speaker 1: as much as I like to imagine that at some

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Speaker 1: point it's just like a hormone key that scientists will

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Speaker 1: be able to turn to shut off my weight gaining potential,

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Speaker 1: it looks like it's just now circling background to exercise.

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Speaker 1: Isn't that the worst? It's not. There's not an easy

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Speaker 1: way out sounds like. But again, I mean there we

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Speaker 1: have to keep in mind those genetic components too, of

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Speaker 1: things like the lepton encoding, the swiveling legs of the lepton. Uh,

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Speaker 1: many different factors going on here. Well, there was an

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Speaker 1: article that you sent me, Kristin where they were talking

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Speaker 1: to a mom and a son who were both overweight,

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Speaker 1: and they did tests and they both had I guess,

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Speaker 1: the deficiency in the hormone that cuts off their appetites.

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Speaker 1: So they because they couldn't understand why they were constantly

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Speaker 1: hungry even after a full meal. So it is good

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Speaker 1: to discover, Like if you're having trouble either stopping eating,

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Speaker 1: losing weight, any of these things, if you're just finding

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Speaker 1: it incredibly hard, it's nice to know that there is

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Speaker 1: a hormonal issue that could be at play. But you know,

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Speaker 1: we obviously also have to keep in mind that you

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Speaker 1: should be eating right to begin with, right, I mean,

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Speaker 1: and I think it's it's important to to include these

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Speaker 1: kinds of UM like hormonal discussions neurological discussions into our

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Speaker 1: broader discussions on um obesity that's going on right now,

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Speaker 1: especially in in westernized countries, because it is a problem.

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Speaker 1: But We can't just say, hey, well, if you just

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Speaker 1: got up off the couch and ate for your potato chips,

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Speaker 1: then problems will be gone, because Nope, it is certainly

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Speaker 1: not that simple. Darn you. Grillan, grillan, speaking of grill

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Speaker 1: and I'm hungry. I'm hungry to finished this podcast. Need

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Speaker 1: some snacks? Uh, So send us your thoughts about hormones obesity.

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Speaker 1: Does this jive with what you've read, what you're feeling,

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Speaker 1: weight loss programs that you've tried and haven't worked, and

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Speaker 1: perhaps it might have to do with hormonal differences mom.

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Speaker 1: Stuff at discovery dot com is where you can send

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Speaker 1: your letters. And before we get to some letters, got

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00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:07,520
Speaker 1: a quick message from our kindly sponsor for this episode

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Speaker 1: of Stuff Mom Never Told You It is audible podcast

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Speaker 1: it far free at audible podcast dot com slash stuff Mom,

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Speaker 1: So go check it out. In the meantime, we got

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Speaker 1: a couple of letters here. I have a letter here

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Speaker 1: from Allison about our when to Have Sex podcast? How

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Speaker 1: long do you Wait? Etcetera, etcetera. She says, My husband

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Speaker 1: and I dated for more than two years before we

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Speaker 1: slept together for the first time. It wasn't that we

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Speaker 1: didn't trust each other or know each other, but rather

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Speaker 1: simply that it wasn't the right time for us, mainly

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Speaker 1: because we dated long distance and because we were both

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Speaker 1: virgins in our twenties who wanted to be sure the

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Speaker 1: relationship was right. And actually it was my husband who

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Speaker 1: wanted to wait longer than me. How's that for defying stereotypes.

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Speaker 1: But one thing that bothered me in this process personally

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Speaker 1: but also philosophically is that I got a lot of

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Speaker 1: judgment from some girlfriends for us not sleeping together, like

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Speaker 1: something was wrong with my boyfriend or our relationship. They

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Speaker 1: actually suggested that I tricked him into it, whatever that means.

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Speaker 1: I just want to point out that I didn't trick

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Speaker 1: him into it. We are happily married, and those girls

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Speaker 1: who I no longer speak to, I believe are not

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Speaker 1: so to me. It's not about timelines, but about respect

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Speaker 1: for your partner and yourself. So thank you, Allison. And

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Speaker 1: I've got an email here from Rachel, partially in regard

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Speaker 1: to waiting for sex, and she writes, I'm a Mormon convert.

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Speaker 1: I believe in no premarital sex for teens and strongly

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Speaker 1: encourage my daughters in that direction. However, I'm divorced and

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Speaker 1: met someone and I had sex on the first date.

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Speaker 1: I thought it was a one time hook up, but

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Speaker 1: I guess not, as we've now been together for three

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Speaker 1: and a half years and are now talking marriage. I

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Speaker 1: also had sex with my now ex husband very soon

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Speaker 1: after starting to date him, but we have been friends

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Speaker 1: for a while prior to that. I won't repeat the

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Speaker 1: living together before marriage part of my former marriage for

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Speaker 1: many reasons, one of which is my oldest daughter was

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Speaker 1: conceived despite two forms of contraceptives. My mind was boggles.

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Speaker 1: But there's always that one percent, also because I don't

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Speaker 1: want to sleep with someone with my kids in the

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Speaker 1: house without being married. I think how quickly you have

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Speaker 1: sex is just factor in what will happen with a relationship,

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Speaker 1: as is living together. There are many other factors, so

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Speaker 1: I don't think it's a good predictor. I do think

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Speaker 1: that if you're in a culture slash church that is

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Speaker 1: predisposed towards people staying married, you're more likely to try

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Speaker 1: to work things out rather than walking away. So thanks

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Speaker 1: to Rachel for that perspective, and thanks to everybody who's

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Speaker 1: written in mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is our

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00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:27,160
Speaker 1: email address. You can also have hit us up on Facebook,

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00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:31,600
Speaker 1: leave us comment, comment there, tweet us at Mom's Stuff podcast,

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00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:34,960
Speaker 1: follow us on tumbler Stuff Mom Never Told You dot

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00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 1: tumbler dot com. And if you'd like more information on

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Speaker 1: the interaction between sleep and wait, you can read is

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Speaker 1: a Lack of Sleep Making Me Fat at our website

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Speaker 1: It's how Stuff Works dot com for more on this

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00:23:50,320 --> 00:23:52,800
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Does it, How stuff works,

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Speaker 1: dot com