What is the stomach clock?

Picture this: you’ve had a busy day, managed to squeeze in the grocery shopping and are rushing home from work. Then, while you’re sitting idly in traffic, as if on cue, your stomach starts to call out for its next meal.

It seems it’s not a coincidence: researchers from the University of Adelaide have discovered the reason our appetite runs like clockwork.

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Examining the science of hunger pangs, they found the nerves in the human stomach act as a circadian clock, limiting how far it stretches (and how full you feel) at different times of the day.

But how does it work exactly?
Basically, your stomach contains a host of tiny nerves that tell your brain when you’ve had enough to eat. And, according to lead study author Dr Stephen Kentish, there are a set of specific times when the nerves become more sensitive, in turn restricting how much you eat.

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“It seems like these signals are pairing periods of activity with how much food you can eat before you’re full,” adds Dr Kentish. What that means? At times of high activity, when more energy is required, the nerves are a lot less sensitive to the stomach stretching, allowing you to consume more.

What does it mean for you?
The discovery of the stomach clock could hold the key to why some people gain weight. And disrupting this rhythm could be one of the reasons why night workers have higher rates of obesity. “Shift workers, for example, have a rotating behaviour,” explains Dr Kentish.

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As both light and food are synchronisers of circadian function, “people who are essentially removing one stimuli (light) are undoubtedly going to have some alteration within their body’s function, which could lead to an increase in weight”.

While the research is in its early stages, in the future, it might mean you can schedule specific meal times that avoid adding extra kilos to the scales. Looks like the secret to your body’s healthiest weight could be as easy as listening to the tick-tock of your internal clock.

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