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Helping Defend You from Food Noise

Helping Defend You from Food Noise

Calocurb – Helping Defend You from Food Noise

Interest in “food noise” has become much more widespread in the past few years due to the introduction of GLP-1s, the prescription medications originally created for lowering insulin in those with diabetes, which segued into weight-loss treatment. GLP-1 (glycogen-like peptide-1) is one of many gut hormones; it’s the “stop eating hormone” that’s released as we eat. It has effects within certain areas of the brain associated with satiety and in the stomach, where it slows down stomach emptying. Together, these effects make you feel full, giving you a physiological signal that you’ve eaten enough and should stop eating. GLP-1 medications like semaglutide (Ozempic/Wegovy) and tirzepatide (Mounjaro/Zepbound) are mimics of the GLP-1 hormone that activate its receptors throughout the body. (These medications are properly called GLP-1 receptor agonists, GLP-1 RAs.)

With the successful use of GLP-1 RAs to reduce weight, people taking them began reporting that their food noise had diminished.1,2 Before this, there was little discussion around the subject of food noise—perhaps because until the advent of GLP-1 RAs for treating overweight and obesity, there had been no known method to quiet it.

So What Is Food Noise?

Food noise describes the constant chatter that some (many?) people deal with about food and eating. It’s way more persistent than an occasional craving for late-night ice cream or a sweet treat when you’re in the vicinity of your favorite donut shop. Food noise is prattling on in your head both when you’re not eating and even when you are eating. It’s waking up hungry and thinking about what you’re going to eat that day; and then continuing to think throughout the day about what to eat, how much to eat, and when to eat again.

As Maggie Sterling explains it, it’s constant. “You’re eating a meal and thinking about the next meal… you don’t want the meal to end.”3 Food noise is questioning if you should be eating that food or not, if it’s going to help you lose weight or gain it, if it’s going to throw off your dieting plans. She describes food noise as a “relentless salesman,” convincing you not just to eat, but to overeat and to eat emotionally.

How Common Is Food Noise?

If you feel you have that “relentless salesman” inside your head, you’re not alone, judging by the 1.62 million hits that Google returned on the search “food noise” and by the 1.8 billion times that TikTok videos on “food noise explained” have been viewed!1 What’s more, a poll of almost 1,200 people by the STOP Obesity Alliance at George Washington University’s Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness and WeightWatchers revealed that 57% of respondents say they’ve experienced food noise.4 The poll revealed just how much food noise impacts people, especially those who are overweight or obese (Figure 1).

Some Definitions

Food noise isn’t a medical definition, though experts agree it’s quite close to “hedonic hunger,” which is a “preoccupation with and desire to consume foods for the purposes of pleasure and in the absence of physical hunger.”5 Others have labelled such preoccupation and obsessive rumination about food as “food related intrusive thoughts.”6 To date there are only a couple of scientific papers on food noise. The first, in 2023, recognized that food noise is closely related to food-cue reactivity, which is how our brains react to the sight, smell and sound of food.6,7

Table 1: Definitions. Adapted from Hayashi et al., 2023

Definitions of food noise and hedonic hunger, adapted from Hayashi et al. 2023

One of the main problems with this definition of food noise is that it associates it with food cues. However, most people who experience food noise do so both with and without any food cues.6 Consequently, a better definition may be that found in the second scientific paper about food noise by Dr. Hanim Diktas and others: “persistent, intrusive thoughts about food that are disruptive to daily life and make healthy behaviors difficult,” whether food cues are present or not.8

What Causes Food Noise?

According to Hayashi and colleagues, there are two groups of factors that can influence the extent of food-cue reactivity7 and thus have an impact on food noise. The first group contains “constant influencers,” while the other group contains “transient influencers.” In both groups, there are factors that—until recently—have been difficult to control.

Table of constant and transient influencers on food noise and cue reactivity

When food-cue reactivity is heightened it causes immediate effects, including increased food-seeking behaviors and eating more.7 When someone has long-term exposure to food cues along with heightened food-cue reactivity, they may develop traits that promote overeating, such as reinforcement of food-seeking behaviors due to the reward of eating something tasty. In addition, weight gain or regain is likely, and they may experience disordered eating and loss of quality of life.7

Measuring Food Noise

Dr. Diktas’s team not only provided a medical definition of food noise; they also created and validated a short questionnaire to measure food noise. When tested on almost 400 people of varying ages, genders, races and sizes, the Food Noise Questionnaire (FNQ) revealed the following significantly higher mean FNQ scores in women vs. men and in those actively dieting vs. not. People with higher BMI values tended toward higher FNQ scores. Retirees and those aged 55 or more had significantly lower FNQ scores. There were no statistically significant differences in mean FNQ scores across other demographic categories, indicating that food noise affects people across the spectrum of race, ethnicity, BMI score, level of education or income, or employment status. Interestingly, across the 33 demographic subcategories, in all but three groups, maximum FNQ scores were 20, and in only one group was the minimum score not 0.8

Food Noise Questionnaire

In this questionnaire, you will answer questions about food thoughts. Please answer these questions by reflecting on your thoughts over the last two weeks only. Check one box in each row.

Food Noise Questionnaire for measuring intrusive food thoughts (Diktas et al. 2025)

Scoring: 0 for strongly disagree; 1 for disagree; 2 for neither agree nor disagree; 3 for agree; 4 for strongly agree. Add up the score for each row; a higher score indicates louder food noise.

Calocurb: Quieting Food Noise Without Medications

Lifestyle changes that are said to help reduce food noise include avoiding extreme dieting, increasing protein and fiber consumption, increasing exercise and sleep, and reducing stress.9 While these are admittedly all good recommendations, if they were truly helpful in reducing food noise and subsequent calorie intake, there would be a lot fewer people who are overweight or obese (when in fact rates of obesity have quadrupled since 1990).10 However, there is an alternative to prescription medications to help quiet food noise: Calocurb® is an affordable, all-natural plant-based supplement containing Amarasate®, a bitter extract from hops flowers grown in New Zealand. When swallowed, the capsule releases beyond the stomach, where it activates bitter-taste receptors on cells lining the gut; in response, those cells release natural GLP-1.

In a clinical study, Calocurb doubled GLP-1 production in response to eating (to six times the pre-eating, baseline levels), which was associated with almost 20% fewer calories being consumed.11 In other studies, Calocurb was taken in the last hours of a 24-hour water-only fast and reduced overall hunger by 25% in men12 and 30% in women, as well as decreasing cravings by 40% in women.13

Importantly, just as with the prescription GLP-1 RA medications, the Calocurb team has heard lots of reports from users that this supplement “shut off my food noise.” Calocurb users from around the world have mentioned this to us, without prompting.

Take the Calocurb FNQ Challenge

The Food Noise Questionnaire is a useful tool to assess how loud food noise is for you, personally. So, for anyone who hasn’t yet started Calocurb but is about to do so, we’d like you to take part in a food noise survey. Take the Food Noise Questionnaire before you start Calocurb. Remember to base your answers on your past two weeks. Start taking Calocurb as recommended by gradually increasing the dose over about five days, to a dose where you notice that you feel full faster. (For most people this is two capsules taken at least an hour before the two biggest meals of the day.) Once you’ve been on Calocurb at a noticeable hunger-reducing dose for four weeks, re-take the Food Noise Questionnaire and see if your scores have dropped. We’d love to hear from you with your results!

References

  1. Blum D. People on drugs like Ozempic say their “food noise” has disappeared. New York Times. Published June 21, 2023. Accessed April 17, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/21/well/eat/ozempic-food-noise.html
  2. Cassata C. Drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy cut cravings and turn down “food noise.” Healthline. Published June 28, 2023. Accessed April 16, 2025. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/drugs-like-ozempic-and-wegovy-cut-cravings-and-turn-down-food-noise
  3. Sterling M. What Is Food Noise? [video online] 2024. https://www.tiktok.com/@maggiesterlingcoaching/video/7451282092228431150. Accessed April 17, 2025.
  4. Stop Obesity Alliance and WeightWatchers. Beyond hunger: understanding food noise. Redstone Global Center for Prevention and Wellness, George Washington University, and WeightWatchers. Published January 31, 2024. https://v.cdn.ww.com/media/system/cms/us/pdf-archive/WeightWatchers_Consumer_Landing_Page_2024.pdf
  5. Espel-Huynh HM, Muratore AF, Lowe MR. A narrative review of the construct of hedonic hunger and its measurement by the Power of Food Scale. Obes Sci Pract. 2018;4(3):238-249. doi:10.1002/osp4.161
  6. Ain HU. Food Related Intrusive Thoughts: A Pilot Study. Honors Theses. University of Richmond: Richmond, VA, USA, 2023. https://scholarship.richmond.edu/honors-theses/1676/
  7. Hayashi D, Edwards C, Emond JA, et al. What is food noise? A conceptual model of food-cue reactivity. Nutrients. 2023;15(22):4809. doi:10.3390/nu15224809
  8. Diktas HE, Cardel MI, Foster GD, et al. Development and validation of the Food Noise Questionnaire. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2025;33(2):289-297. doi:10.1002/oby.24216
  9. Mayer BA. 6 Natural Ozempic alternatives that can help quiet “food noise.” Healthline. Published November 22, 2024. Accessed April 17, 2025. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/natural-ozempic-alternatives-quiet-food-noise
  10. World Health Organization. Obesity and Overweight. WHO. Published March 1, 2024. Accessed September 26, 2024. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/obesity-and-overweight#:~:text=In%202022%2C%201%20in%208
  11. Walker EG, Lo KR, Pahl MC, et al. An extract of hops (Humulus lupulus L.) modulates gut peptide hormone secretion and reduces energy intake in healthy-weight men: a randomized, crossover clinical trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2022;115(3):925-940. doi:10.1093/ajcn/nqab418
  12. Walker E, Lo K, Tham S, et al. New Zealand bitter hops extract reduces hunger during a 24 h water only fast. Nutrients. 2019;11(11):2754. doi:10.3390/nu11112754
  13. Walker E, Lo K, Gopal P. Gastrointestinal delivery of bitter hop extract reduces appetite and food cravings in healthy adult women undergoing acute fasting. Obes Pillars. 2024;11:100117. Published June 20, 2024. doi:10.1016/j.obpill.2024.100117