Stress and Comfort Food

cortisol-caffeine-stress

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco have found a feedback system in rats that may explain the craving of so called "comfort foods" in people who are under stress. A steroid hormone, called corticosterone, is produced in rats as a response to stress. The human equivalent of this hormone is cortisol.

The hormone causes rats to engage in pleasure seeking behavior 24 hours after stress. This behavior causes the rats to crave high calorie food. In the rats' case, the food was sugar and lard. The hormone's effect on people is likely to make them crave chocolate or greasy burgers.

The research also explains why some people get abdominal obesity. Chronic stress caused the rats to gain weight around the abdomen. The fat cells actually work to curb the stress. The researchers suspect that the metabolic signal to inhibit the stress system comes directly from fat deposits. The finding offers an explanation into how chronic stress can be inhibited, or curbed.

The body's acute response to stress, like a single event such as being cut off in traffic, diminishes through an inhibitory feedback mechanism of the adrenal stress system. Chronic stress, which is a series of negative events, worrying, frustration occurring over a period of weeks or months, does damage to the body. It creates depression, obesity, a tendency towards type II diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome (high cholesterol with high LDL, low HDL, high triglycerides and high blood pressure), cardiovascular problems and a loss of brain tissue.

"Our studies suggest that comfort food applies the brakes on a key element of chronic stress," says study co-author Norman Pecoraro, PhD, "And it could explain, why solace is often sought in such foods by people with stress, anxiety or depression." The mechanism may also explain bulimia and night time binge eating.

This may be part of a survival mechanism. In the animal kingdom, it's eat or be eaten, and constant, or chronic, stress may make the animal prefer to eat high-energy foods for fuel to help with survival. Under the model that the research team has proposed, corticosterone (or in humans, cortisol) would prompt vigilance to threats and also send a signal to the brain of a chronically stressed animal to seek high-energy food. If it were successful in finding such food, stress and its attendant feelings would end.

If there is war, food shortage, disease, or other threats to survival, the need for high calorie food is great. In a society where people do not face these dire conditions, stress comes in the form of job deadlines, fights with the spouse, rush hour traffic, or financial worries. But the stressed out office worker seeks the same solution as the person or animal who's survival is being threatened---food. The choice to eat chocolate or a greasy burger may well come from chronic stress.

In a society where people eat too much junk food and there is a problem with adult onset diabetes, obesity, and heart disease, we need a better way to address chronic stress. In a civilized society, overeating merely manifests as the physiologic problems of stress. Better solutions would be exercise, deep-breathing, yoga, meditation, or even a good hot bath. These can stimulate neurochemicals that activate regions of the brain that stimulate pleasure. Relaxation techniques may work by reducing the psychological drives on stress output, which can be the root causes of stress.

Whole Health America

High Stress increases the bodies production of Cortisol which in return increases Glucose in the body. This then causes high Insulin problems and may put individuals in a pre-diabetic state. So often I hear my patients talk about how hard it is for them to lose weight around the middle section. Insulin and cortisol problems are big contributing factors to weight gain around the middle. Stress is a silent killer in many ways on the body. Let us help you get it under control.

Dr. J

Lyme Disease Part 2

Diagnosis I recommend starting with the following tests:CD57 Panel (cellular stress) (HNK-1) (LabCorp: 505026) and Complement C4a (complement stress) (LabCorp: 004330) The CD57 is not so much a test to detect Lyme disease as it is an immune marker...

Leaky Gut and the Auto-Immune Connection

Leaky Gut Syndrome (LGS) is a major cause of disease and dysfunction in modern society, accounts for at least 50% of chronic complaints, as confirmed by laboratory tests.In LGS, the epithelium on the villi of the small intestine becomes inflamed and...

Lyme Disease Part 1

Lyme disease is an infectious illness commonly caused by a tick bite infected with the spiral-shaped bacterium called Borrelia burgdorferi. Of special interest, the disease is named after the towns of Lyme and Old Lyme, Connecticut. There are...

The Drug that Ruined our Lives

Ciprofloxacin is a ‘last resort’ antibiotic—but doctors are treating it as a routine drug, with terrible consequences Ciprofloxacin hydrochloride—marketed as Cipro in the US—is a ‘last resort’ antibiotic, or should be. It’s usually...

Regular Mini-Fasts can Help you Live Longer

Doing a mini-fast every so often—such as skipping a meal or eating less—could help you live longer and reduce your chances of developing a chronic disease, researchers say. Although most of us couldn’t live like that every day, the occasional...

Is there a Link Between Antihistamines and Cancer?

Research published in Science News (1994;145:324) raises the question of whether the antihistamines we take for allergies can be linked to cancer. Studies in mice have shown that antihistamines promote the growth of malignant tumors. Scientists at...

Alzheimer's: Why is the Brain Deteriorating?

After considerable research it is interesting to bring you up to speed on documented evidence of things which answer the question. "Why is the human brain deteriorating faster than the rest of the body?”There are a multitude of factors and today's...

What's in Your Vitamins?

Dietary supplement fans got a big "buyer beware" warning this week when the New York attorney general's office ordered GNC, Target, Walgreens and Wal-Mart to pull a number of store-brand products from their shelves, following an investigation that...

Drugs that Do more Harm than Good

Every pharmaceutical drug can cause an adverse reaction, but sometimes the effects are so significant—or the drug just doesn’t do what it is supposed to—that the risks far outweigh any benefits. Here’s a list of some of those drugs.ADHD...

Antibiotics Failing in up to 50 percent of Patients

One in six courses of antibiotics fails to treat infections - and sometimes it’s as bad as one out of every two - suggesting the age of the ‘superbug’ is getting ever closer.The antibiotic failure rate now stands at 15.4 percent, which means...

Living in a Sea of Estrogen

Estrogen is not a single hormone. It is a class of hormones and hormone like compounds that have estrogenic properties.There are human estrogens, animal estrogens, synthetic estrogens, phytoestrogens, and xenoestrogens.The three human estrogens are...

Chemicals in Our Bodies

The average American now has 116 synthetic compounds in his or her body, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. These compounds include dioxin, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and organochlorine pesticides....

The Power of Apple Cider Vinegar

Most of you have probably heard about Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV), however, did you know that it has been used for many hundreds, if not thousands of years. In fact, Hippocrates ( the father of medicine) used AVC back in around 400 B.C. for its health...

Are you Missing the Sunshine Yet? The Next Best Thing

The Importance of Natural Sunlight - According to numerous studies, poor light poses a serious threat to health. Many firmly believe that the best light for maintaining health must contain the full wavelength spectrum found in natural sunlight. Most...

The Power of Bone Broth Soup

Many studies now confirm what Grandma always knew–that broth made from bones is a great remedy, a tonic for the sick, a strengthener for athletes, a digestive aid, a healing elixir. And unlike bitter medicines, broth can be incorporated into...

The Organ that Likes to Get People Around the Holidays

As a direct result of the Standard American Diet (SAD), gallbladder problems are rampant in modern society. Traditionally, many practitioners have supplemented those with gallbladder issues with products containing bile salts. While bile salts...
Page: 12345 - All