There is a substance called cortisol in our bodies, frequently known as a “fight or flight” hormone we feel when stress is high. Our adrenal glands pump this hormone out in large quantities when we are scared or overstimulated, and if we deal with this type of elevated mood for too long, it can cause health problems. Common issues include abdominal weight gain, poor sleep, irritability, and even a condition known as Cushing’s Syndrome in which the face also gets fat and round, and one gains a hump on the back.
That doesn’t explain Quasimodo being a hunchback, but he sure experienced a lot of stress as the town victim, subject to their abuse and derision.
The diet, food and drug industries have been providing lots of verbiage about how to handle cortisol. The diet industry wants us to lower our numbers by eating a certain way, the food industry wants us to eat their products, and the drug industry wants us to regulate everything with their medications.
I recently journeyed down a rabbit hole filled with factoids and falsities about cortisol. Well-sculpted bodybuilders touted capsaicin pills, while drug salesmen discussed the benefits of ashwagandha in a capsule, and the diet gurus rambled on and on about their health programs to shred pounds.
At one point I discovered that food companies had once bought out the most popular diet conglomerates. This means that Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig and Slim Fast were overseen by somebody who sells food that might not be good for us. Imagine that. By the way, Slim Fast is now owned by an overseas nutrition company, Weight Watchers shifted away from Nestle’s ownership and is struggling after a bankruptcy filing, and Jenny Craig succumbed in 2023.
The difficult part of losing weight is not simply eating less or changing our diets, exercising more, injecting or using a chemical in a pill. It’s a combination of factors such as what foods we eat, what is in them, and what our lives are like when we are not seated at a table or counter at a meal.
The stresses in our lives cannot be denied as contributors to our levels of cortisol and the obesity problem we have in our country. Other countries don’t seem to have the same issues, and their daily lives are much less stressful. Their foods are also much “cleaner,” with many countries banning a huge percentage of the ingredients we still consume in the US daily. I reported before on additives to crops which have been given the green light by regulatory agents here while being shunned elsewhere. Several of the factors in combination can cause problems. The only way to remove the problem is to remove the causes, and that seems impossible in today’s emotional climate.
With the number of people having moved out of the country and repatriated to other places, it would be interesting to follow up with any obese or high cortisol patients and see how their stress and body masses have changed in five years.
I’ll bet none of them will look like Quasimodo.
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