: Why is it that it takes few seconds for our body to decide that it’s had enough water not to be thirsty, but several minutes to recognize that no more food is needed cuz it’s not hungry?
In: Biology
Water is liquid and moves quickly. Food is solid and moves slower. Hunger goes away much faster when you drink a protein shake compared to eating a steak.
Your body can store excess food more easily than it can store excess water. Therefore it’s not as critical to be perfectly accurate about exactly how much food you need.
The body is quick to react to water changes by sensing blood pressure. Its slow to react to food changes since it has to sum up a dozen different things (how full the stomach is, blood sugar levels, the exact time you ate, your subjective experience of the food, the effect of the Signalis from body fat, etc.).
I think I read somewhere that thirst quenching starts at the back of the throat with a temperature change. The brain gets signals that water is on the way
Hunger and Full are two different signals. Full is when the stomach is full of material, not that you have satisfied your hunger.
You satisfy your hunger when you eat something, it starts to get digested and then your blood sugar come under control. And that gets into the much more complex interaction of carbs, fats, protein and how each of those affects the uptake of the other two.
Since the best response has already been commented, I want to add… They say it takes about 15 minutes to start feeling full regardless of how much food you eat. So if you’re shoveling food into your mouth your going to eat way more than you need to and probably pack on pounds. I always eat super slow then get full without eating very much. Cut the calories, cut the fat.
Consider listening to the rest of your body regarding water intake.
Knees feeling stiff, back stiff, pee looks more yellow etc.
Water is life bruh.
Sensory neurons in the mouth and throat immediately detect water entering your body. They tell certain regions in the brain responsible for blood plasma concentration to slow their roll on telling you you’re thirsty.
It takes about 30 to 60 minutes for water to start being absorbed and distributed throughout your system. At this point, your blood volume goes up, blood pressure goes up, plasma osmolarity goes down, stomach expands, etc. Good things when you were just dehydrated. Now, these things are all sensed by baroreceptors in various regions in your vasculature. They eventually further inhibit your thirst sensation.
If we didn’t stop drinking until the body decided it had adequate blood pressure, we would overhydrate very easily.
Those who stayed too long at the well were eaten by the tiger.
Those who ate too little starved to death.
Hunger pains come from stomach acid being released in expectation of food, whereas thirst comes from our brain, from the hypothalamus. The brain is quicker to notice quenched thirst than the stomach is to fill up.
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