The liver makes you love sugar

photo source: Martymousetherat
A hormone secreted by the liver called FGF21, which determines who sees sweets. People with
variant of the FGF21 gene were 20 percent more likely to be sweetened than the control group, according to a recent study.
" data, collected from 6,500 Danish participants, surprisingly showed the basis of sweet hormones. Matthew Gillum, an assistant professor of biology at the university, said.
the study also lead to new theories about the role of the liver in controlling people's diets. Once food passes through the stomach and intestines, the other organ the nutrient meets is the liver. The liver secretes FGF21 after a person ingests sugar, a liver hormone that sends a "brake" signal to the brain that makes people taste for sweets, but if they don't secrete enough, people will lose their appetite for sweets.
, the researchers suspect that the liver also directs other hormones in more food choices. "How do we decide what to eat and how much to eat?" Perhaps satiety is made up of many paths that control different nutrients. Gillum said.
Gillum and university collaborators found in 2015 that FGF21 secreted by the liver regulates sugar intake in rodents, but it's unclear whether the hormone has a similar effect in humans.
to find out, Gillum and collaborator Niels Grarup used a study called Inter99 as a database. The study collected self-reporting of dietary intake, as well as blood flow cholesterol and blood sugar measurements. Gillum and Grarup sequenced the FGF21 gene in the study participants.
they focused on two variants of the gene, which are associated with increased sugar intake. They found that people with one of these two variants were more likely to eat sugar. The study also revealed that these variants are associated with a greater love of alcohol and smoking, but more research is needed to determine. But the researchers found no link between these mutations and obesity or type 2 diabetes.
in order to better understand the mechanism of FGF21's regulation of sugar intake in the human body, Gillum and Grarup conducted a clinical trial to analyze changes in FGF21 in the blood in response to sugar intake. They focused on 51 people who were very sweet and very unsavoury. The results showed that people who were extremely unsavoury had 50 percent higher levels of FGF21 in their blood than those who ate very much. (Source: Science Network Zhang Zhang)