This week I would like to talk about a hormone found in our bodies that is very important to our overall health. It is called “cortisol” and is secreted from the adrenal glands that sit on the top of your kidneys.

For those of you trying to lose weight and improve your overall health, you should familiarize yourself with how elevated levels of this hormone can negatively impact your body. This includes weight gain, a weakened immune system, and an increased risk of chronic disease.

This is how cortisol works:

1) When you are exposed to physical or emotional stress, the adrenal glands that sit on top of your kidneys secrete the hormone cortisol.

2) This increased cortisol level prepares your body for a “fight or flight” response to this stress by flooding the blood with glucose (sugar), which will supply an immediate source of energy to the large muscles in preparation for a potential increase in physical exertion. Interestingly, cortisol also inhibits the production of insulin, which would normally remove this elevated level of glucose from the blood and store it in the cells of your body. Thus, the end result is you’re your blood glucose (sugar) levels remain higher than normal until the stress subsides and the cortisol levels lower.

3) Cortisol also constricts or narrows the arteries in your body, which increases your blood pressure and makes your heart pump harder.

4) Eventually, when the physical or emotional stress is resolved, the level of cortisol decreases, glucose levels in the blood decrease as insulin levels are allowed to return to their normal levels, the constricted arteries relax to normal and blood pressure returns to normal once again. This is assuming that the physical or emotional stress is temporary and doesn’t occur on an ongoing basis.

The point I want to make with this article is that if you are under constant stress at home or at work, your levels of cortisol may be elevated for extended periods of time every day. This will result in your body remaining in a “fight or flight” mode during that time. Based on what I mentioned above, this means that you will have a higher blood sugar level (potentially leading to type 2 diabetes) and higher blood pressure (increasing your risk of a heart attack) whenever your cortisol levels remain elevated due to stress.

Next week, I will discuss in more detail the negative effects that elevated cortisol levels can have on your body. Unfortunately, there are even more than I have mentioned today!