A hole you can't fill (appetite question)

General Questions
#1

I was reading in the news the other day, that obese people are generally deficient in a chemical that tells them that they are full, so they keep eating.
Do skinny people have an overabundance of this?

(The reason I’m asking is that I’m suffering bizarre symptoms from an illness I’ve got currently, and of the symptoms is a permanent hunger pang! I feel absolutely starving almost permanently. Is this what obese people feel? Maybe I’m getting sympathy pains for David Blaine! Qadgop, you ever get anyone with symptoms of sudden fevers and permanent hunger?)

#2

I don’t know about obese people in general, but there is an extreme form of this called Prader-Willi Syndrome .

Speaking as a (more or less, yo-yoing) obese person, whether I eat or not often bears no relation to whether I’m hungry or not - like many overweight people I’m a comfort eater. :frowning:

Julie

#3

I think the hormone is called leptin.

#4

The causes of obesity are complex and manifold. There are cases which are probably due to disorders of appetite, where people feel hungry all the time, but they are rare and account for less than 1 one-thouandth of 1 percent of the total.

I’ve seen no serious complaints of insatiable appetite in my career. I have plenty of patients who go off their diets because they don’t like feeling a mite peckish.

#5

Leptin is one of em, and now they also talk about something called Peptide YY (PYY). this one works in hypothalamus to control appetite.