Robert Lustig argues that insulin drives hunger and weight gain. He points to insulin infusion experiments that increase hunger, insulinomas that cause weight gain, and genetic variants where higher insulin secretion associates with more weight gain and lower secretion with less.
Chapters
So does insulin cause weight gain? Well, increased insulin definitely makes you hungry. That has been shown again 50 ways from Sunday. You infuse insulin, you get hungry. It activates receptors in the brain. We know from people who are over insulinized with diabetes that they all gain weight. And it's one of the reasons why teenagers with diabetes don't take their insulin because they're afraid of weight gain, and they all end up in diabetic ketoacidosis. One of the banes of my existence as an endocrinologist. We know that insulin secreting tumors, insulinomas, cause weight gain. Okay? And there are a whole bunch of genetic variants that affect insulin secretion. And in fact, if you have a defect that increases insulin secretion, you will gain more weight. And if you have a defect that reduces insulin secretion, you will gain less weight. So all of those things are true.