Obesity may be due to chronic stress

What is it about?

Stress reactions appear in a variety of forms. In one of them, the defeat reaction, there is a marked increase in the production of cortisol. Psychosocial chronic stress, particularly subordinate stress, promotes an increase of cortisol production. This excess of cortisol, with time, leads to a clinical status of metabolic syndrome (central obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance). This chain of reactions and events appear to be important factors in the association between social-economic status and health, as unemployed, refugees, ethnic minorities, homeless people, humiliated workers, and an huge proportion of women across countries, small areas, social classes, and income distribution suffer from this type of chronic stress and have poor health, namely cardiometabolic diseases and depression. Adverse effects of central obesity are partly directly attributable to obesity itself, but a large part of those effects is probably due to cortisol. More important than reduce the obesity will be, therefore, to prevent the stress and cortisol excess.

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Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Chronic stress is an important factor contributing to obesity. Often, obesity associated morbility is not due to obesity itself but to the stress / increased cortisol levels obesity may signal. The health disturbing consequences of stress and high cortisol are much more than causing obesity. As a matter of fact, they may be revisited in Cushing syndrome, a clinical situation of higher production of cortisol by hyperplasia or tumours of the adrenal cortex. Recognition of this relationship may facilitate the detection of social factors that may be corrected, and the patient suffering ameliorated.

Perspectives