Knut Hamsun wrote Hunger in 1890(1).
This Norwegian novel, set in Kristiania( modern day Oslo) , recounts the
wretchedness of an aspiring writer caught in the clutches of hunger. His
unsolicited essays are more often than not rejected by the publishers, and even on the rare
occasions when accepted the reward is just enough to cover food for a couple of days. Poverty forces him to pawn every
possible material possession he owns. Partly autobiographical, the
tortuous feeling of hunger, what
it can do to the physical and mental state of a human being, is splashed across the
pages in vivid shades. His mind is at once delirious and sober, indulging in snobbish fantasies while still being acutely aware of the stark
reality around. Traumatized by hunger he even
takes to chewing bark. Thirty years later Kafka sketched the " Hunger Artist"(2)
For Kafka's protagonist abstaining from food is an art and he does
it willingly out of no compulsion whatsoever. Proud of his skill, he is ever
ready to demonstrate it under the watchful eyes of the public , seeks no
reward and ultimately fades into
oblivion.
Experts say that one’s daily
energy need could be as low as 1600kcals or as high as 6000 kcals depending upon how heavily one
sweats it out. (3) Coupled activity of two key hormones, at the
hypothalamus, ghrelin at the opening
ceremony and leptin during the closing
ceremony, orchestrates our feeding pattern(4). In
other words, ghrelin is the start signal and leptin is the stop signal. It
indeed isn’t surprising at all that intense research in the area of
obesity has been instrumental in
unraveling the intricate biochemical and neural pathways of hunger. Friedman (5)
and
his colleagues at the Rockefeller Institute were doing precisely the same in
obese mice population, when they confronted leptin It
is astounding that the amount of leptin
generated is proportional to the fat stored in the adipose tissue. That means
there is a dynamic inventory going on.
Mutations in the leptin gene or lesions in the hypothalamus
regions where leptin is supposed to exert its influence could lead to hyperphagia,
a state where the body is in perpetually hungry mode leading to overeating and obesity. Ghrelin the hunger
hormone too acts at the hypothalamus, specifically on a set of neurons called Agrp neurons. If the AGRP neurons are provoked into frenzied
activity then again
hyperphagia develops. However, if somehow
AGRP neurons can be sedated, then
the result is aphagia, loss of appetite and abstention
from food. August 9th issue
of Nature carries a research paper by Sternson and his team at the Janelia Farm
Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Virginia, (USA), which tries
to map the neural circuitry of hunger.(6) Their findings, team hopes would prove helpful in overeating disorders.
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| At the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid |
2. Hunger Artist in
Selected Short Stories of Franz Kafka, Srishti Publishers, New Delhi
4. The role of leptin and ghrelin in the regulation of food intake
and body weight in humans: a review Klok Jakobsdottir Drent , Obes
Rev. 2007
Jan;8(1):21-34.
5. JeffreyFriedman
6.The Deconstruction of a neural circuit for hunger : Atasoy, Betley and Sternson, Nature vol. 488, 9th August, 2012, pages 172-177
6.The Deconstruction of a neural circuit for hunger : Atasoy, Betley and Sternson, Nature vol. 488, 9th August, 2012, pages 172-177
