Northerner
Admin (Retired)
- Relationship to Diabetes
- Type 1
Does stress make you fat, even if you don’t overeat? That is the question researchers from UCL have been trying to answer by giving volunteers of different shapes and sizes a haircut and measuring levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their hair. Long-term stress raises cortisol levels, and the researchers found that the larger volunteers had higher levels in their hair. So does this mean we can attribute obesity to stress and, if so, what can we can do about it?
The idea itself isn’t new. Cortisol is produced by the adrenal glands that sit on top of the kidneys. It plays a vital role in keeping glucose levels in the bloodstream in a steady state. When we are stressed or threatened, cortisol levels rise to release more glucose from stores in the liver, so we have more fuel to fight or run for our lives. Too much cortisol means too much glucose floating around and if it doesn’t get used, the excess is stored as fat.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/06/is-it-possible-to-be-healthy-and-obese-stress
The idea itself isn’t new. Cortisol is produced by the adrenal glands that sit on top of the kidneys. It plays a vital role in keeping glucose levels in the bloodstream in a steady state. When we are stressed or threatened, cortisol levels rise to release more glucose from stores in the liver, so we have more fuel to fight or run for our lives. Too much cortisol means too much glucose floating around and if it doesn’t get used, the excess is stored as fat.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/mar/06/is-it-possible-to-be-healthy-and-obese-stress
