Page 9 - Nutrinsight-1
P. 9
About the value of controlling appetite • NutrInsight
2 BEHAVIOURAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL MARKERS OF APPETITE, SATIATION AND SATIETY
Two main categories of markers can be used to measure appetite, satiation and satiety: the behavioural markers (motivations to eat or subjective sensations, food intakes and the interval between two eating episodes) and the physiological markers (hormones, neuro-transmitters, brain imaging).
2.1 Thebehaviouralmarkersofappetite,satiationandsatiety
Three categories of behavioural parameters can measure satiation and/or satiety: subjective sensations and food consumption can be used in combination to measure satiation or satiety, whereas the interval between meals (or inter-prandial interval) is a marker of satiety alone.
Motivations to eat or subjective sensations
Determining subjective sensations in Man makes it possible to measure the degree of motivation to eat during a meal (satiation) and between two meals (satiety). The determination is usually carried out using 100 mm visual analogue scales (VAS) (Fig. 4).
Subjects are asked to quantify the intensity of each sensation at various times. The scores are determined at specified times so that profiles can be plotted to measure the change in the sensations over time. Most researchers who use Visual Analogue Scales to measure appetite follow the terminology developed at the end of the 1970s (21). The four questions most often used make it possible to assess the sensations of hunger, of fullness (sensation of a full stomach), of the desire to eat, and of prospective consumption (the amount of food that one thinks one could eat). These terms refer to complementary aspects of the motivation to eat, and provide a global assessment of subjective appetite. When these visual scales are used in clearly-defined protocols they are reproducible, dependent on the foods available and on specific conditions, and can be related to the energy intake (22;23;168). A 10% difference obtained with VAS to discriminate two products is typically seen as a “reasonable and realistic difference” (168).
In practice, foods have differing satiation and satiety potentials. The more satiating a food or meal, the more quickly it will reduce the sensation of hunger and increase that of fullness, and this helps to bring eating to an end. The more a food or meal produces satiety, the more slowly the conditions for starting a meal (severe sensations of hunger and slight feelings of gastric filling) will develop.
Example of a visual analogue scale
At this precise moment, are your hungry?
Not at all hungry Extremely hungry
Figure 4: Example of the VAS utilisation and their translation into a hunger profile The method of visual scales consists of reporting subjective sensations by placing a mark on a straight line (generally 100 mm in length), two opposite states being specified at each end of this line.
Extremely hungry
100
Not hungry at all 0
HUNGER
eating terminated
Satiety increase
0
Start eating
Time
9
Satiation increase
Reference meal
Score (mm)


































































































   7   8   9   10   11