If you thought obesity is a product of a sedentary lifestyle and an unbalanced diet only, you may be wrong. Stress can be one of the major underlying causes of Obesity in some people.
A recent study by Professor Herbert Herzog of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, showed that stress has a direct influence on your metabolism, your weight and the fat accumulation. These scientists have also demonstrated that a molecule released by the body when stressed, Neuropeptide Y (NPY) can unlock Y2 receptors in the body’s fat cells thus encouraging and stimulating them to grow in size and number.
Herzog inferred that when NPY levels in our body rise they end up raising our heart rate and blood pressure too.
“We have known for over a decade that there is a connection between chronic stress and obesity. We also know that NPY plays a major role in other chronic stress-induced
conditions, such as susceptibility to infection. Now, we have identified the exact pathway, or chain of molecular events, that links chronic stress with obesity,” Herzog said.
Dr. Anoop Misra of Fortis Hospital infers that, “Obesity has been known to be a disease not due to diet but because of stress. Stress increases cortisol level secreted from the adrenal gland which has direct connection to fat accumulation.”
Whatever may be the reason, the fact that stress can influence obesity, holds value. Scientists at Georgetown University also researched to find the same.
They fed normal diets and high calorie (high fat and high sugar) diets to stressed and unstressed mice. The mice on normal diets did not become obese. However, stressed mice on high calorie diets gained twice as much fat as unstressed mice on the same diet.
So now to combat obesity you know that you not only need to control your diet but also your stress levels.
Till then keep Dieting and take a Chill Pill!
