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Feeling hungry can be beneficial: A new study on hunger and long life
28.09.2023 10:10
Updated: 06.11.2024 10:27
People try many different ways to lose weight, like diets, surgeries, and medicines - both for aesthetics and health.
A new study from the University of Michigan suggests that simply feeling hungry might help you live longer.
But how is that possible? Let's find out.
A surprising discovery
In the past, we knew that eating less food could make animals and humans age more slowly.
But this study looked at whether the feeling of hunger itself could have the same effect.
The researchers found that making flies feel hungry in different ways made them live longer.
Even when they ate more food, as long as they felt hungry, they lived longer.
One way they made the flies feel hungry was by changing the kind of food they ate.
Flies that ate a certain type of snack felt more hungry and lived longer, even if they ate more.
They also used a special technique to make the hunger part of the flies' brains more active using red light.
These flies ate more and lived longer too.
The study also showed that the hunger feeling changed how certain genes in the flies' brains worked.
Why it's important to know
These changes in genes affected their hunger and aging.
While this study was done with flies, it might have implications for other animals, including humans.
However, more research is needed to understand how hunger might affect our lifespans better.
The researchers also plan to look at how the desire to eat for pleasure, which we all have, could be linked to how long we live.
