Kinesiologists at the University of Virginia in the
United States recently found that for healthy adults, high-intensity exercise can suppress hunger better than moderate-intensity exercise, and women are more vulnerable to this effect.
To examine the effects of exercise intensity on hunger hormone levels and appetite between men and women, the researchers selected eight men with an average age of 43.1 years and six women with an average age of 32.2 years. Hunger hormone circulates in the blood in the form of acylation (AG) and deacylation (DGA), which affects appetite. Participants were asked to fast overnight and then complete exercise of varying intensity (determined by measuring the level of lactic acid in the blood), after which they reported their appetite strength.
The results show that the effect of high-intensity exercise on the level of hunger hormone is stronger than that of moderate-intensity exercise. People who exercised at high intensity felt less hungry than those who exercised at moderate intensity, and only women showed a significant reduction in acylation after high intensity exercise. In contrast, moderate-intensity exercise neither changed ghrelin levels nor resulted in a net increase in ghrelin levels. The study,
published in the Journal of the Endocrine Society, suggests that high-intensity exercise can be an effective way to lose weight because it plays an important role in suppressing appetite, and that exercise above the “lactate threshold” is necessary to suppress hunger hormones.
