Stress leads the gut to produce ghrelin a hormone that reduces anxiety, depression and stress and makes us feel better, stimulating appetite in us the sense and the desire to eat. Michael Gershon, American researcher at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in NY says that ghrelin directly stimulates the release of dopamine in the brain directly by triggering neurons involved in pleasure and reward and indirectly by signals to the vagus nerve. In the past, the production of ghrelin was good, ghrelin helped deal with stress but nowadays with lots of fast food with high calorie, the result of chronic stress and depression can be chronically elevated ghrelin with significant consequences on the rate of obesity.