Confusing thirst and hunger?

BeachIron

I'm pretty sure I can identify the difference but given the level of critical thinking skills demonstrated in the MFP forums on a daily basis I need to point out that my experience is merely anecdotal and other's results may vary.

amybg1

OK folks let's simplify things a bit here and say that the best source for this 'myth' is YOU! Each person's body functions differently, what signals we get can mean something different from one person to the next. For ME this would be true - if I haven't been drinking my usual amount I will feel it in my stomach, when I'm not super dehydrated it will feel different than hunger but if I am pretty dehydrated (before any of the obvious signs show up) I will feel like I am hungry. And so have some water, maybe a cup or two all depending on your dehydration level and wait a few minutes. If the feeling subsides, you're dehydrated and if not then you're hungry.

OBVIOUSLY this won't work for everyone but for some it does. Look at it this way: If you gave 10 girls the EXACT same pair of pants to wear and we established that ALL wore a size 8 would the pair of pants fit ALL of them the same? No. So in this same sense, everyone's signals work differently and so what is an indicator for someone isn't for another. Plain and simple

kelsully

When I drink more water, I have to pee a lot, but when I eat a lot I don't pee any extra. Now, that is confusing.

drinking more water helps though when you also eat a lot of food because then you get to poop too.

SirBonerFart

I'm pretty sure I can identify the difference but given the level of critical thinking skills demonstrated in the MFP forums on a daily basis I need to point out that my experience is merely anecdotal and other's results may vary.

Good point

SirBonerFart

OK folks let's simplify things a bit here and say that the best source for this 'myth' is YOU! Each person's body functions differently, what signals we get can mean something different from one person to the next. For ME this would be true - if I haven't been drinking my usual amount I will feel it in my stomach, when I'm not super dehydrated it will feel different than hunger but if I am pretty dehydrated (before any of the obvious signs show up) I will feel like I am hungry. And so have some water, maybe a cup or two all depending on your dehydration level and wait a few minutes. If the feeling subsides, you're dehydrated and if not then you're hungry.

OBVIOUSLY this won't work for everyone but for some it does. Look at it this way: If you gave 10 girls the EXACT same pair of pants to wear and we established that ALL wore a size 8 would the pair of pants fit ALL of them the same? No. So in this same sense, everyone's signals work differently and so what is an indicator for someone isn't for another. Plain and simple

I was not really looking for anecdotal evidence but thank you for your input :flowerforyou:

PhattiPhat

Yeah, the whole "you might be confusing thirst with hunger" seems like bull in my case. Drinking water does nothing.

However, it does work for headaches.

usmcmp

I'm pretty sure I can identify the difference but given the level of critical thinking skills demonstrated in the MFP forums on a daily basis I need to point out that my experience is merely anecdotal and other's results may vary.

I love you Beach!

usmcmp

what would be a good source?

Peer reviewed study. Article from a science journal. They keep saying hunger mechanism or thirst mechanism, but I'm 100% sure I never saw that body part in an anatomy book.

ikopke

Here is a reliable (peer reviewed) source on the issue of debate (still in debate)

"Hunger and Thirst: Issues in measurement and prediction of eating and drinking"
Richard D. Mattes, MPH, PhD, RD
Physiol Behav. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2011 April 26.
Published in final edited form as:
Physiol Behav. 2010 April 26; 100(1): 22–32.
Published online 2010 January 11. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2009.12.026
PMCID: PMC2849909
NIHMSID: NIHMS175763


You can read the paper at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2849909/


OR

Thirst-drinking, hunger-eating; tight coupling?
J Am Diet Assoc. 2009 Mar;109(3):486-90. doi: 10.1016/j.jada.2008.11.027.
McKiernan F, Hollis JH, McCabe GP, Mattes RD.

You can read the paper at:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2671201/

There's quite a few that link from these too.

Cheers,
I.

kellymarie31

I have a personal anecdote about hunger being confused with thirst that includes hard data. Not quite what you requested, but still provides some food for thought.

This is long, but bear with me:

I used to be 230 pounds and suffered from a severe heart arrhythmia. My heart condition progressively got worse over a couple of years despite significant intervention (3 ablations, multiple hearts meds, frequent hospitalizations, etc.). I was also very hungry during this time, but didn't really think much of it because I assumed it was just a self-control issue with food.

Eventually, my heart condition got so bad that my heart started to fail and I was hospitalized for a long time (about 6 six weeks). During that long hospitalization, doctors discovered that a part of my body which affects hydration levels (the pituitary) had stopped working properly. That condition, called Central DI, was causing me to be chronically (and seriously) dehydrated, and it was putting a lot of stress on my heart.

For treatment, I was started on a replacement pituitary medicine, DDAVP, which forced my body to hold onto the water I drank so that I did't become dangerously dehydrated.

The result of this treatment was that not only did my heart improve once I was hydrated, but my hunger significantly decreased. I ended up losing over 70 lbs. after starting DDAVP in 2010, and the weight has not come back. I started tracking my weight loss here on MFP after I had lost the first 40 or so pounds.

What I realized was that the entire time I was heavy I thought I was hungry, but I was actually thirsty. Once proper hydration was restored, my eating adjusted to normal on its own.

To this day, I can tell if I need to increase my DDAVP dosage or drink more water by paying attention to whether I am still hungry after a meal that should have been adequate in calories.

Of course, this is an extreme example - most people on here do not have a pituitary problem that causes dehydration. But I do think my experience illustrates that confusing thirst with hunger is something that can actually happen, even if it is a rare occurrence.