Possible involvement of ghrelin on pain threshold in obesity

Summary 

Pain threshold (or perception) can increase or decrease according to some factors like gender, depression or individual differences. Also, previous studies showed that pain threshold can change in obesity but, these studies on the effects of obesity on pain threshold have given controversial results. In the obese people who were exposed to pain stimulasyon to determined pain threshold, an increased pain threshold was observed. Contrarily, in the studies using electrophysiological test had lower pain threshold, which indicates a reverse correlation between degree of overweight and the threshold of the nociceptive reflex. These studies indicate possible interrelationships between the endogenous opioids, nociception and obesity or eating behavior. Nevertheless, its mechanism is still unclear. The endocrine changes that play an important role in obesity can lead an increase or decrease in pain threshold. There are a few researches about these hormonal factors which are related to pain pathways, that they are nociceptive (like leptin) or antinociceptive effect (like ghrelin, orexin A and B). Ghrelin is one of the hormones which is related to obesity. There are studies which prove the relationship between this hormone and the systems that play a role in pain modulation in the brain. However, there is no previous knowledge about the effects of ghrelin on pain threshold in obesity. But, many strong evidence are present to hypothesise that ghrelin may have effects on pain threshold. Obesity and fasting are the two main situations in which ghrelin secretion is mostly modified. Circulating ghrelin levels negatively correlate with BMI, meaning increased ghrelin secretion during fasting, malnutrition, cachexia, and in anorexia nervosa and reduced ghrelin secretion in obesity. Therefore, we have the opinion that ghrelin play an important role in obesity–pain relationship and/or regulate other systems that are related to pain pathway. Based on the above analyses, we propose a hypothesis that the diminution of the susceptibility to pain in lean subjects/animals may be induced by the increase in endogenous ghrelin activity, or increased of the susceptibility to pain in obese subject/animals may be induced by the decrease in endogenous ghrelin activity.