I’m interested in how this happens, not why. What substance is used? How is it produced, and how is the whole process regulated?
i can venture a wild ass guess that the toxins from the microbes put an extra stress on the liver, which in turn signals that its not ready to process food.
I would think also that a reduced activity level would decrease your appetite. You’re not exactly burning a lot of calories when you’re in bed.
But I wonder why humans feel nausea and it lingers. If a human vomits, that person will likely not want to eat again for a while. But when my cat vomits, she just goes back to her bowl and starts eating the food she puked up moments before.
…and sometimes they even eat their puke. And to think that the cat people claim cats are smart. Sheesh.
In various disease states (infection, cancer, inflammation), the body produces substances called cytokines. These cytokines induce loss of appetite.
As further proof of this effect (and as noted in this link on cytokines), there is also loss of appetite when cytokines are used therapeutically (eg. for treatment of certain blood disorders and cancers).
The cat eating again doesn’t mean they don’t feel nausea. Even if they do, they lack the wherewithall to understand there’s a connection between eating and vomiting. Cats seem not to grasp cause and effect. At all.
Cats vomit when they eat too fast. I’d venture to say that this means that an important enzyme in their saliva isn’t being used (since the food spends too little time in the mouth). So it makes sense that they’d eat the food again, probably realizing they should eat slower now - the food will be more digestable.
Robo99, the notion of cats “realizing” something is quite beyond their mental capacities. As noted, cause and effect are pretty much beyond a cat’s mind. They can apparently learn via opperant condioning, but beyond that, thought, as we conceive of it, is most likely absent. Realizing? I don’t think so.
Please justify this absurd statement.
Some cats are. In one way my cat Cookie understands cause and effect: she understands ‘if the alarm clock makes a noise, I get fed’, so in the mornings she bats the alarm clock around. But she can’t tell the difference between pulling and pushing a door. To get out of a room where the door is ajar, instead of hooking her claw around it, she pushes it shut and then looks confused. Dumb as a stump.
Hah. My cat’s smarter than yours :). (Or would be, if she was still around.)
[QUOTE=KarlGauss]
In various disease states (infection, cancer, inflammation), the body produces substances called cytokines. These cytokines induce loss of appetite.
I’m a glutton. Where can I buy a bottle of cytokines.
I was in the hospital because of severe blood loss and shock. I lost my appetite and ate almost nothing while I was hospitalized. They kept me full of saline solution via an IV pump. It was a while before I started eating normally again. The drugs (opiates) they gave me after surgery probably had something to do with it.