While diet and exercise play an important role in your body’s metabolism, including your ability to gain weight, maintain your current body weight, and lose weight, your hormones are just as big of a factor. Too much or too little of any one of a number of hormones, and you may have issues with your weight.
In some respects, your hormones are your hormones, but you can influence them with a healthy diet and exercise. And some synthetic hormones can help you correct hormonal imbalance. So, which hormones play a role in healthy weight loss?
How Do Hormones Impact Weight Loss?
Hormones help your body perform certain functions throughout your body, like telling your body when to sleep, kickstarting puberty, and influencing your mood. They also influence your body’s metabolism, appetite, and how quickly you digest food. It’s a complex process with multiple hormones working in tandem to ensure you eat enough to survive while keeping a “fat reserve” you can burn for energy when food is scarce.
The hormones that regulate the process act on a small part of your brain called the hypothalamus, which plays a critical role in regulating your weight. It’s where the hormones that signal hunger and fullness go, telling your body to eat (or not) and regulating how many calories you burn while at rest.
Your hormone health and weight loss are linked. When your hormones are out of balance, or you have low hormone levels, your hypothalamus may send the wrong signals to your body, leading to weight gain or making it difficult to lose weight. For example, if your body is less responsive to the hormones that signal you’ve got enough fat reserve, your hypothalamus may signal your body to eat more to build up that reserve, resulting in weight gain.
What Hormones Influence Weight Loss or Weight Gain?
Your body produces a number of hormones that influence your ability to lose, gain, and maintain a healthy weight. While some work alone, several work together to produce those results.
Hormones That Regulate Hunger and Fullness
The hunger and fullness hormones that tell your body when you’re hungry and when you’re full also influence how quickly food moves through your digestive system.
Amylin
Amylin is a hormone produced by the pancreas. It helps you feel full, slows down how quickly you digest food, and reduces how much you eat, while maintaining stable blood glucose levels.
Cholecystokinin
Cholecystokinin (CCK) is a peptide hormone released by the small intestine when you eat. It tells your gallbladder to release bile and your pancreas to release enzymes to digest fat and proteins. However, it also regulates how slowly your stomach empties and tells your brain when you’re full.
Ghrelin
Ghrelin is the hunger hormone. It’s produced in the stomach and, in a sense, helps us survive because it reminds us to eat!
When you go too long between meals, your ghrelin increases, making you feel hungry and urging you to do something about it. However, in some cases, ghrelin levels can become so high you overeat. When this pattern repeats too often, you can gain weight.
Glucagon-Like Peptide 1 (GLP-1)
Probably the most familiar hormone for weight loss, GLP-1 is a fullness hormone produced in the intestine that helps us sense when we should stop eating. It also helps maintain and manage sugar levels, so we don’t get a sugar high and then crash.
Interestingly, GLP-1 and ghrelin work together. When your ghrelin level is high, you produce less GLP-1, so you eat more food.
Leptin
Leptin is the opposite of ghrelin. It’s produced by your body fat and tells your hypothalamus you’re full and how much body fat you have. Unlike other hunger and fullness hormones, leptin doesn’t act directly on your appetite and instead impacts your food intake and how your body uses that food as energy, helping you maintain your weight.
When you lose weight (say, after the flu), your leptin levels decrease, signaling your body to eat more. Too much leptin in your system and you may experience cravings or overeat, making it difficult to lose weight. On the flip side, people who struggle with their weight may have high leptin levels, which can lead to leptin resistance.
People with leptin resistance don’t get the same feeling of fullness that people without leptin resistance have, which can also lead to overeating and difficulty losing weight.
Peptide YY
Peptide YY (PYY) is another gut hormone. It’s released by L-cells in your small intestine and colon after eating to reduce your appetite, help you feel full, and slow how quickly you digest food.
Some research shows that people who struggle with weight loss have lower levels of PYY.
Hormones That Regulate Blood Sugar and Energy Use
Several hormones influence weight gain and weight loss by helping your body manage glucose and determining how energy from food is used or stored. Some also impact appetite and fullness.
Insulin
Commonly associated with diabetes, your pancreas releases insulin throughout the day as well as after eating. It regulates your blood sugar levels to transfer glucose from food into your cells for immediate energy use or storage as glycogen.
People who take synthetic insulin or have a condition known as insulin resistance may not be able to store glucose as efficiently, which can lead to weight gain.
Glucagon
Glucagon is another hormone produced by the pancreas. When your blood sugar is too low, glucagon brings your level back to normal by stimulating the liver to release stored sugar into your blood stream. A stable blood sugar level allows us to go longer between meals so we don’t spend all our time eating.
GIP
This weight loss hormone goes by two names: glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide or gastric inhibitory polypeptide. Either way, it’s known as GIP, and it’s a gut hormone that’s released from your small intestine which triggers the pancreas to release insulin to manage your blood sugar and help you feel full.
Hormones That Influence Metabolism and Body Composition
Some hormones influence your metabolic rate, fat distribution, and muscle mass. Abnormally high or low levels of these hormones can contribute to weight gain or weight loss.
Cortisol
When you’re facing something stressful, your adrenal glands release two hormones: cortisol and adrenaline. While they serve the same purpose (getting you to react), they do it differently.
Adrenaline helps you act immediately in response to a threat. Your heart rate increases, your breathing becomes more rapid and shallow, and your muscles tighten so you can fight or flee. Once the immediate threat has passed, the effects fade quickly.
Cortisol is also a stress hormone that helps you react to a threat, but it builds up slowly. It may take minutes or even hours to feel the impact, but that impact can last for hours or even days. A cortisol release increases blood sugar to support brain function, regulates your metabolism, and slows down “non-essential” processes, like digestion and immunity.
When your cortisol levels remain high for too long due to chronic stress, your body starts adapting, but that adaptation means your body is always on guard for threats. Over time, this can lead to illness, inflammation, and weight gain.
Estrogen
Estrogen does not play a direct role in weight loss. However, it does play a role in your metabolism, fat storage and distribution, and insulin sensitivity, all of which impact your weight.
Estrogen acts indirectly on hormones like glucagon-like peptide 1, which, in turn, acts on the hypothalamus. This indirect link between estrogen and weight could mean that if your estrogen levels are too high or too low, you may have trouble with weight loss or maintaining your current weight.
Thyroid Hormones
Your thyroid gland produces hormones that regulate your metabolism. However, your thyroid can become unbalanced, leading to several conditions. Two of the more common ones that can impact your weight loss and weight gain are hypothyroidism (an underactive thyroid) and hyperthyroidism (an overactive thyroid).
While hypothyroidism may make it difficult to lose weight, hyperthyroidism may increase your hunger but also cause unintended weight loss.
Testosterone
Unlike estrogen, testosterone may play a role in weight loss.
A study of men receiving testosterone therapy due to low-T found that, over time, these men increased their lean muscle mass while decreasing their fat mass by more efficiently burning off what they already had. This combination helped the men lose weight and, more importantly, keep it off.
How Do Weight Loss Medications Influence Hormones?
While these hormones can all play a role in weight loss, synthetic versions of some of these hormones can help anyone struggling with weight loss or weight management achieve their goals.
Amylin
The synthetic version of amylin is used for diabetes management by helping to lower blood sugar, but it also shows potential for helping people lose weight. It’s similar to GLP-1s in that it slows how quickly food leaves the stomach but also shows potential for improving bone health.
GLPs
The synthetic versions of GLP-1 are probably names you’re familiar with, like Wegovy and Ozempic. While originally designed for diabetes management, they are also effective at helping people lose weight.
Glucagon
Synthetic glucagon may work as part of a larger approach to weight loss. While more studies are needed, it’s part of a promising class of weight loss drugs known as triple-agonist weight loss medications like retatrutide.
GIP
As a synthetic hormone, GIP alone does not contribute to weight loss. However, when it’s combined with a GLP-1, it helps you feel fuller and improves your body’s ability to process energy more efficiently.
Can I Overcome My Hormones for Weight Loss?
A healthy diet and regular exercise are critical for weight loss or maintenance. However, your hormones play a significant role in how your body stores and metabolizes your food intake, and diet and exercise may only take you so far.
If you’ve struggled to maintain your current weight, lose weight, or keep gaining weight despite diet and exercise, your hormones may be out of balance. At Complete Wellness and Aesthetics, our full suite of medical weight loss support and therapies may help you achieve the weight loss results you’re looking for.
Contact us today to schedule a free consultation in person or over the phone, and learn how we can help you find optimal wellness.