Older women who aren't eating enough feel less hungry than younger women, even though their bodies are making more of the hunger hormone, which might explain why they eat less as they age.

Even though undernourished older women have more of the hunger hormone in their blood, they still don’t eat more—so high hunger signals don’t always make people eat.

Even though hunger and fullness hormones are different in older women, those differences don’t match up with who eats less—so the problem probably isn’t the hormones themselves.

Older people don’t feel hungry after eating because their body doesn’t release the right hunger hormone the way younger people do.

Frail older people have less of the hunger hormone in their blood even before they eat, which might make them less interested in food.

For normal-weight women, eating meals sweetened with fructose doesn’t lower hunger hormone levels as much as glucose-sweetened meals, so they might feel hungrier afterward.