More than 50 years ago, Jean Mayer proposed that changes in blood glucose concentrations or arteriovenous glucose differences are detected by glucoreceptors that affect energy intake. According to this theory, an increase in blood glucose concentrations results in increased feelings of satiety whereas a drop in blood glucose concentrations has the opposite effect. The pioneering work of Mayer has recently received support from our group as low glycemia has been shown to be linked with body weight gain prospectively and has been considered as a strong predictor of the amount of weight regained after weight loss. This state of mild hypoglycemia also predicts the increase in depressive symptoms with weight loss and a greater propensity to glucose intolerance and type 2 diabetes, particularly for individuals having short sleep durations. Furthermore, knowledgebased work has been shown to induce a significant increase in spontaneous energy intake being related to changes in glycemic control. In accordance with the glucostatic theory, this oriented review suggests that factors favoring a trend toward hypoglycemia and/or glucose instability might induce excess energy intake, overweight and impaired glucose tolerance. Data also raise the possibility that fat gain might be protective against mild hypoglycemia by providing compensation to the stimuli promoted by a modern environment. Keywords: body weight; glycemia; glucose homeostasis; glucose intolerance; metabolism; weight gainThe identification of the biochemical basis for hunger and meal initiation, and of the signals controlling these neurobiological processes have been the subject of extensive research and debate for some decades regarding the control of food intake. These studies led to the classical lipostatic, 1 aminostatic, 2 and thermostatic 3 theories of food intake control as well as more recent hypotheses. [4][5][6] However, all of these theoretical ideas were preceded by the notion that glucose uptake and utilization played a central and metabolically privileged role in the control of hunger, satiety and the regulation of body energy balance. Although these notions were first discussed and suggested by Carlson in a classic text published in 1916, 7 they were formalized by Jean Mayer into the classical glucostatic theory in the mid 1950s. 8,9 The glucostatic theory of food intake control postulated that reduced glucose utilization in critical brain regions leads to perception and expression of hunger, and increased glucose utilization in these same glucosensitive sites leads to decreased hunger and cessation of eating. Mayer proposed that decreased glucose utilization or 'metabolic hypoglycemia', the point at which the peripheral arteriovenous difference in blood glucose becomes negligible and glucose is no longer entering 'metabolizing cells', was the signal for meal initiation. In his 1955 paper, Mayer explicitly argued that the glucostatic theory would account for the short-term control of hunger and food intake, whereas he invoked a lipostatic mechanism...