High-intensity exercise can decrease hunger and curb overeating: Study

New research suggests high-intensity workouts, even if they are quite short, can reduce a key appetite-upping hormone in many people, making them less likely to overeat.

“This evidence counters the popular assertion that exercise transiently increases appetite” and leads us to shovel in food afterward, according to a new scientific review of studies about exercise and eating in the journal Appetite.

Instead, challenging physical activities might leave us less interested in food, at least for a while.

These differences are obviously small. They weren’t statistically significant, the scientists note, and might be accounted for just by people’s inaccurate recording of what they ate those days.

The effects also varied from one person to the next, suggesting changes to ghrelin were not the only factor at work.

“There are multiple biological signals thought to play a role” in appetite, “but many other psychological, environmental, and individual factors” as well, said David Stensel, a professor of exercise metabolism at Loughborough University in Britain, who studies exercise and eating.

A study published in April in the Journal of Applied Physiology also found that physical activity lowers hormones that increase appetite.

The result, over time, could mean we eat less and control our weight better if we push ourselves a bit during exercise.

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