The Connection Between Stress, Digestion, and Heart Health

A bladder is logical for scent marking species. Kidneys are bidirectional but once urine leaves them to go to the bladder, they become unidirectional.

If you have chronic stress, you will have chronic blood pressure, blood returning to your heart with more force. Over time that wall will thicken with more muscles. Left Ventricle HyperTrophy which increases risk of developing irregular heartbeat.

Bifurcation of Arteries – No cell in your body is more than five cells away from a blood vessel, yet it just takes only 3% of body mass. Points of Bifurcation are burnable to injury. Stress can promote plaque formation by increasing the odds of blood vessels being damaged and inflamed. It is studied that damaged and inflated vessels are a better predictor of cardiovascular trouble than amount of circulating curd(cortisol etc)

Atherosclerosis – formation of plaques. Plaque can be torn apart by blood flow(previously stuck on the vessel wall and form a floating piece called thrombus. This can flow in blood and block smaller capillaries. When you are out of the stress condition, your heart slows down as a result of the vagus nerve which is activated by the parasympathetic system.

The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.

Estrogen works as an antioxidant, getting rid of damaging oxygen radicals.

With the onset of stressful emergencies, you secret glucocorticoids, which stop the transport of nutrients to fat cells. This counteracts the effect of insulin if it’s still floating around. Also your body shunts the circulating amino acids to the liver which converts it to glucose which is readily available in terms of disaster.

In shy-drager syndrome, where it is epinephrine and norepinephrine that are inadequate, having inability to mobilize the body inadequate, having inability to mobilize the body in case of emergency.

The official numbers are that stress makes about two thirds of people hyperphagic(eating more) and hypophagic(eating less).

Recently discovered a hormone called leptin. Very full fat cells secrete leptin, which works in the brain to decrease appetite.

CRH(Corticotropin-releasing hormone) rapidly goes to blood and is cleared out within seconds of stress response, Glucocorticoids take hours to spread in blood and clear out. CRH inhibits appetite and Glucocorticoids does the opposite.

If there are large amounts of CTH in blood and small amounts of glucocorticoids, you are at the beginning of a stress response, so it is a good time to turn off your appetite. Next, if CRH and Glucocorticoids are present in the same amount, then you are in the middle of stress response.

Next the glucocorticoids are more so you are in the recovery phase.

A whole lot of people not just eat because of their nutritional needs, but also due to their emotional needs. These folks tend to be both overweight and stress eaters.

Fat cells are located in your abdominal area, around your belly are known as ‘Visceral fat’ Fill up these fat cells with fat, not depositing much elsewhere you take an apple shape.

When glucocorticoids stimulate fat deposition they do it preferentially in the abdomen. Abdominal fat cells are more sensitive to glucocorticoids than are gluteal fat cells(more receptors).

Fat released from abdominal fat cells more readily finds its way to the liver(in contrast to gluteal fat stores, which get dispersed equally throughout the body) where it is converted into glucose, setting up for elevated blood sugar and insulin resistance.

Comfort food decreases the amount of stress response, Oreo not only tastes good, but by decreasing stress response, makes you feel good as well.

The stomach not only breaks down food chemically but also mechanically. Systolic contractions(period of contraction of the ventricles of the heart that occurs between the first and second heart sounds of the cardiac cycle (the sequence of events in a single heart beat)).

Circular muscles called sphincters located at the beginning and end of each organ open and close, serving as locks to make sure things don’t move to the next level until digestion of that section is complete. Whole system has to be watered properly. We spend 10 to 20% of energy on digestion. Digestion is quickly stopped during stress.

Your stomach grinds to a halt, contraction stops, enzymes and digestive acids are no longer secreted, your small intestine stop peristalsis, nothing is absorbed.

“Organic” Gastrointestinal Disorder :

Ulcer in stomach
Inflammatory bowel diseases

“Functional” Gastrointestinal Disorder :

Immensely sensitive to stress
Irritable Bowel Syndrome(IBS) – Causes abdominal pain just after a meal and relieved by defecating.

Types of study of diseases :

Retrospective : THey look at people who already have the disease and ask them to identify the stressors in the past.
Proceptive : In which people who do not have disease are followed to see if stress predicts who is going to get the disease.

An ulcer is a hall in the walls of an organ and ulcers originating in the stomach are known as peptic ulcers.

Types of ulcers

Gastric Ulcer : Within stomach
Esophageal – higher up than the stomach
Duodenal – border of stomach and intestine(most common)

Bacteria – Helicobacter Pylori

Causes Ulcer
Pathologist who discovered it had to eat it and cause himself an ulcer.
It is able to live in the acidic environment of the stomach by wrapping itself into a coating of bicarbonate which is acid resistant.
The bacteria infect the cells in the lining of the stomach, causing gastritis, which somehow compromise the ability of those call lining
Only 10% of the people affected by this bacteria get ulcers.

So you need bacteria and something else, which may be lifestyle risk factors – alcohol, skipping breakfast regularly, smoking, and taking a lot of aspirin. Or genetic factors to release more acid in the stomach.

The weapon that the stomach has against the food is the HCl released. Bicarbonate is secreted in the stomach to neutralize it. When in chronic stress the digestive process slows down in turn slowing the release of HCl. So the stomach cuts back on constant thickening of stomach walls, under secretes mucus and bicarbonate. End of stress period and you decide to eat a chocolate cake and your stomach starts secreting HCl but your defenses are down and you have got yourself an ulcer.

Running the cells on oxygen can sometimes lead to formation of oxygen radicals. Normally free radicals decompose these oxygen radicals. It may be possible for the stomach stops to make free radicals in stress.

Source : Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert M. Sapolsky

Goodreads : https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/327.Why_Zebras_Don_t_Get_Ulcers