|
 |
   |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Stress can be the meat and potatoes of the foodservice business. The hours, staffing, and financial pressures are enough to put even the most competent chef or manager into a stew. But while you're familiar with the daily ingredients that stir stress into your life, you may not be aware that diminished stress could be a forkful away. Take Comfort Medical research is also showing that hormones and brain cells can shape eating behaviors and stress responses, which ultimately contribute to America's obesity epidemic, depression, type 2 diabetes, and incidence of heart disease. The new report regarding comfort food as a calming drug was published in the September 2003 issue of Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences by Dallman and Co-author Pecoraro. (4) The report suggests that the tendency to overeat during times of chronic stress is biologically driven and is part of a stress response system in the body. The study, which used chronically stressed rats, found there are definite mechanisms that interact with food, coping, and how we store fat in the body. For example, the study showed that high sugar/fat foods provide the brain with a stress-relieving signal. In the case of the rats, they were exposed to stress; then 24 hours later, they were prompted to eat high fat/sugar foods. Eating these foods immediately reduced their levels of stress hormones. (The equivalent hormone in humans would be cortisol.) The results of the study would apply to humans since both rats and humans have the same stress response system, which kicks in when stress or a threat occurs. Until now, it was not very clear how chronic stress gets turned off in the body. Now it appears that comfort foods are part of a feedback loop involving abdominal fat, high sugar/fat foods, and pleasure centers in the brain. (5,6) TOP
Dieting & Stress
Good balanced nutrition is essential for reducing the negative effects of stress on the body and also to help the body better cope with stress. When an individual experiences chronic stress, there is a greater requirement for certain nutrients. Studies have shown that a body under stress depletes its store of nutrients, including B vitamins, which affect the nervous system, and calcium, which is needed to counteract the lactic acid that tense muscles produce. (Sometimes this results in an overall achy feeling in the body). Another example has been seen with magnesium, which is important for muscle relaxation. It has been found to be lower in Type A or high stress personalities. TOP
Stress is a condition, which merits a close understanding. There are many ways one can feel stress, and whether it's job, emotional, or health related, the metabolic effects can be serious since the body's equilibrium is altered. During stress, "happy messengers" such as serotonin, noradrenalin, and dopamine begin to malfunction. As a result, the nerve centers begin to receive mostly overstress messengers. It is these messengers, such as cortisol, that can make one feel tired, achy, anxious, depressed, have sleep disorders and experience a feeling of being overwhelmed. TOP The body experiences two kinds of stress, short term and long term. Short-term stress results in signals to the brain, which release a cascade of stress hormones. You may feel anxious, find yourself seeking food, or even energetic. However within minutes, elevated stress hormones communicate with the brain and shut down the stress response system--but constant high stress overrides the shut down stress response system. This becomes a more pronounced craving for high sugar/fat foods. The increased compulsive behavior is related to "seeking" food. The chronic elevated levels of stress hormones, such as glucocorticoids, lead to not only a marked preference of high sugar/fat foods but over time a greater accumulation of abdominal body fat.
A study published in the September 2000 issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, found that women who stored fat primarily in their abdomens had reported feeling more stressed than the women who stored body fat mostly in the hip area. These same stressed women produced higher levels of cortisol than women with fat on their hips. The authors suggest that the hormone cortisol causes fat to be stored in the center or abdominal area of the body. Abdominal body fat cells can generate a stress relieving signal in the brain. It appears to be part of a feedback loop involving abdominal body fat, energy rich food, and pleasure centers in the brain. In summary, the study led by Dallman and Pecoraro, reminds us that an occasional relief of anxiety with sweets or high fat foods may be good for the soul, however, long term use of them for this purpose, may be bad for health. The rewarding factor for many chefs is that you can simplify eating routines to free up time for many Americans and also provide good nutrition which can ultimately improve how the body copes with stress. TOP |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
