Stress, overeating, cortisol.

[chip douglas]

I've been researching this issue and still am while I'm typing this....

There's something I can't quite make sense of regarding cortisol and overeating. Let me expand....

When I surf the web, most of time there comes a point in time where I'll get overwhelmed and stress kicks in from inability to find exactly what I've been researching for, or from too much hits on same subject. Then soon after I get the urge to overeat simple carbs--same thing happens all the time when stressed out. Stress and overeating are linked big time.

Now what I can't quite make sense of is how my low urinary Cortisol fits in this picture. I saw an anti-aging M.D. at the end of last winter, and I was telling him that at times when speaking on the phone or when talking to someone I don't know much, my short term memory goes awry. he then told me it was Cortisol doing this, but he didn't tell me whether it was low or high Cortisol.

However when I showed him my then recent 24-hour urinary Cortisol, he said : Look no further Marc, here's your problem, you're morning cortisol is way too low. He said that I should have been at 250 or so soon after walking out of bed.

This is the test result from May 2006 :

Urinary Cortisol 87 ( 55--300) nmol/d
duration : 24 hours
Volume : 1 150 mL

Now on the same batch, blood cortisol was also performed, and here are the results :

Cortisol (8 hours) 679 ( 160 - 700) nmol/L
Time of blood draw : 8: 45 AM


Cortisol (16 hours) 186 ( 50 - 500) nmol/L
Time of blood draw : 3: 30 PM


The same M.D. said that while my blood cortisol shows ability to rise or peak, if stress goes on it drops to low levels.


That same M.D. prescribed Hydrocrotisone, which I haven't yet started on.

Anyway, when one is stressed out i read cortisol triggers an increase in appetite, and seem to be a major player in overeating.

But since I was prescribed hydrocortisone, it's cause my cortisol was low to beging with-- so since overeating is tied to HIGH cortisol from psychological stress, how does my low cortisol increase appetite for sweets ?

I guess, as evidenced by blood test results, my cortisol can rise up under stress, but my adrenals have an issue when it comes to sustained demand placed upon them.

[zkt]

Very interesting . Please keep us appraised of your findings .

[chip douglas]

http://medical.med.tokushima-u.ac.jp..._n3-4_p139.pdf

This one is interesting. It found cortisol to have little impact on stress-induced food intake, at least it was not found to be a direct effect of cortisol and is thought to mediate other hormones such as leptin and Neuropeptide Y.

[zkt]

The link you posted crashes my IE every time.
I`m interested in the link to memory problems. Anything about thqt in it ?
I searched http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cortisol+memory but havent had time to read it yet.

[MongolHahn]

Not real familiar with effects of low cortisol on any areas, but know that HIGH cortisol can affect both short and long term memory and cognitive reasoning skills... plus a whole bunch of other bad things.

Overall, your figures don't look bad.

Your early morning draw (usually done right at 8 AM) is higher, but it is supposed to be. Cortisol is at its peak in the morning.

The decline of melatonin levels in the blood combined with the rise of cortisol levels in the blood in the morning is what wakes us up. Then the opposite is true at night. Your cortisol levels begin dropping during the afternoon and especially sharply at night (usually at their lowest point between Midnite and 3 AM). Meanwhileat night your melatonin levels begin rising. The combination of the two puts you to sleep.

Of course what screws that up is anything from aging (most hormone levels drop drastically as we age, except for cortisol for both men and women - it drops but not real signigicantly and in many elderly actually raises, and seemingly estrogens in elderly men in many cases) to stress to various medical disorders to some other hormone (like thyroid for example) being out of balance, etc., etc.

Your daily total is somewhat on the low side, possibly what one would call low normal.

As cycles can be different from day to day (as well as definitely different DURING the day), I would have at least two more daily checks (24-hr UFC tests) done and see what my average of the three were before I'd start axctually adding in artificial cortisol to my system (and I don't believe it is "bioidentical" either, though not positive on that). I'd likely even try some herbal supplementation to boost natural production (since HPA Axis seems to be working OK otherwise) before going that route.

But, hey, that's just me... and I'm no doctor, just IMHO.

Jas