Exercise can help suppress appetite via hormones, study claims

Exercising can curb your appetite, a new Australian study has found.

Researchers at the University of Western Australia found that high intensity exercise suppresses calorie intake in men who don't work out much.

The study used 17 overweight men, who participated in four 30-minute exercise sessions. The four sessions involved either rest, moderate cycling, intense cycling and even more intense cycling.

The more intense exercise involved short bursts of energy, whereas the moderate saw continuous cycling.

After the sessions, the participants were given a 267-calorie liquid meal and then were offered more food an hour later. The men were told to eat until they felt full.

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They found that overweight men tended to eat 200 fewer calories during the meal right after the intense exercise.

That meant that the men ate about 2,000 calories per day on the intense exercise regime and up to 2,600 on the days of rest.

The result could be due to the release of certain hormones that block hunger but the small size of the study means that more research needs to be done before conclusions can be drawn.

"This study provides some promising preliminary support for this notion, but further research is needed to investigate this in a longer-term study," study author Aaron Sim, a graduate student at the University of Western Australia, said.

The research was published in the International Journal of Obesity.

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