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Does Stress Make You Fat? (Does Fat Make You Stressed?)

It may be a classic catch-22, but the real question is how do we put the kibosh on the whole thing?

Americans: smart and industrious, democratic and free — and unfortunately, anxiety-riddled and overweight. And these two things go together like peanut butter and jelly (on Wonder bread). Researchers have known for over a decade that there’s a connection between chronic stress and obesity. But new studies have identified the exact chain of molecular events that links the two conditions, according to reports in the July 1, 2007, online version of Nature Medicine (doi: 10.1038/nm1611).

Stress Pumps Up Fat Cells
Stress is like a steroid for fat cells. When the body is stressed, one of the substances it releases is a molecule that causes heart rate and blood pressure to increase, along with a number of other physiological reactions. One other thing this molecule does is to unlock certain receptors in fat cells, allowing them to grow bigger than normal and also to multiply.

Scientists at Georgetown University have found a connection between stress, a high-calorie diet, and extreme weight gain. These scientists tested two groups of mice — a stressed group and a non-stressed group. Each group was fed normal diets and high-fat and high-sugar (“comfort food”) diets. The stressed mice on the high-fat and high-sugar diet gained twice as much fat as unstressed mice on the same diet. The stressed animals used and stored fat differently than the non-stressed ones.

The researchers then experimented with blocking these specific fat-cell receptors or removing this receptor’s gene from the abdominal fat cells. When they did this, the stressed mice on high-fat, high-sugar diets did not become obese. In addition to not getting as fat, they also did not suffer the metabolic changes linked to stress and diet, including glucose intolerance (prediabetes, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, etc.) and fatty liver — an accumulation of fat in the liver that is often associated with obesity and diabetes. The lead author of the published report called the effect of breaking this chain of molecular events “remarkable.”

While the researchers talked about the ways in which these findings can be used by pharmaceutical companies to create drugs that interfere with these receptors, thereby reducing fat cells, it might be wiser to simply put some extra time and energy into addressing our culture’s stress epidemic. We’re always on the lookout for that magic pill that will mean we don’t have to do the heavy lifting — that is, we won’t have to change our unhealthy ways. Change is hard, but change can be good.

Stress Soothers
What are the best ways to manage and relieve stress? You’ve no doubt seen countless articles on relaxation techniques, exercise, yoga, and the like. Stress relief is big business in our stressed-out country, so you can find books, videos, websites, gadgets, and services galore that claim to melt away stress and anxiety. But what really works? Scientists want the answer to that question and have begun to study in earnest methods for relieving stress.

Yoga
Let’s look at yoga first. Once the practice only of serious hippies and people living in ashrams, yoga is now as mainstream as the Stairmaster. Because yoga is touted to be relaxing, researchers have conducted studies to measure yoga’s effect on stress and health.

One study, published in the May 2007 issue of the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, showed that yoga practitioners experience a 27 percent increase in levels of a neurotransmitter known as GABA after a one-hour yoga session. Low levels of this brain chemical are associated with anxiety and depression, so these findings point to the possibility that regular yoga practice may somehow offset that drop in GABA. Though the study was small, the researchers broke new ground using high-tech brain imaging to gauge the levels of the neurotransmitter before and after the yoga session, comparing the results to a control group of people who simply read during the hour-long session.

Consider those findings in light of these: In another study from 2005, a group of 98 people were given blood tests at the beginning and end of a 10-day yoga-based intervention that involved yoga, relaxation techniques, group support, and lectures. In this short period, researchers saw marked improvements in fasting blood glucose, cholesterol, and triglycerides.

So, perhaps yoga — or rather the type of physical and mental activity that yoga entails — causes a tide of positive physiological responses that affect our health in any number of positive ways, from making us feel less stressed or depressed to regulating what goes on at the cellular level in our blood vessels and organs.

Meditation
Meditation is the other formerly fringe activity that has attracted the interest of scientists for its ability to dramatically affect health, mood, and behavior. Although a June 2007 meta-analysis, from the University of Alberta in Canada, was unable to show a definitive health effect from meditation, individual studies have had some impressive results.

In a study published in the June 2006 Archives of Internal Medicine, researchers conducted a trial in which 52 patients with coronary heart disease were instructed in meditation and another 51 received health education. At the end of the study, patients in the meditation group had significantly lower blood pressure, improved fasting blood glucose and insulin levels (signifying reduced insulin resistance) and more stable functioning of the autonomic nervous system, which controls the heart and other involuntary muscles.

The researchers speculate that the benefits come from meditation’s ability to mitigate the body’s response to stress, not from an actual reduction in the stress itself.

So maybe it’s that activities like yoga, meditation, running — anything that focuses your mind and alters your breathing to a deeper, more regular pattern — cause a domino effect throughout the body that includes throwing a wrench in that fat-cell-receptor response that caused the stressed mice to get obese.

Whatever it is, the writing is on the wall. Stress is bad for us — really bad. So if there’s one thing you do for yourself this year, it should be finding a few ways to be more relaxed.

Other Great Stress Reducers
Yoga and meditation are proven stress busters, but you’re better off using a multi-pronged approach to bring the level of stress in your life down a significant notch or two. Here are some other methods to consider.

Massage. They’ve done studies on the beneficial effects of massage, but research seems almost unnecessary here. There’s nothing that more obviously reduces stress on the spot than a good rubdown. Just walk into any nail salon, and look at the faces of the women getting shoulder massages while their nails dry.

Make Mirth. Find every opportunity to laugh. Laughter reduces stress hormones, increases “feel good” hormones and brain chemicals, enhances your immune system’s responses, and helps mitigate the damaging physical effects of stress. All that, and it’s also just plain fun. And believe it or not, you can even benefit from faking laughter. Just as fake smiling causes the same physiological changes that real smiling does, faking a good laugh delivers health benefits, too.

A Little Perspective. View adversity as a challenge instead of a threat. First, find a way to make light of the situation. Bill Cosby is apparently fond of saying, “If you can laugh at it, you can survive it.” There is almost nothing so horrible that you can’t find a bit of humor somewhere in it. Then, if you feel yourself drifting into the “why me?” frame of mind, yell “stop!” (out loud if you can) and think of yourself as a comic book super hero facing a new challenge. What do I need to do to handle this? What is a strength I have that I can capitalize on, and tackle this challenge? What is one small thing I can do to make this situation better?

Connect. Social connections are not only important for the obvious reasons, but having a broad array of personal relationships is associated with lower levels of stress hormones, increased immunity, and overall good health. Studies have even shown that social connections decrease the risk of mortality. So reach out, make new friends, give people second chances. The more varied your list of social connections, the better.


Reviewed by Susan Weiner, R.D., M.S., C.D.E., C.D.N. 3/08