Stress Just As Bad As High-PUFA Diet For Your Health

haidut

Member
Forum Supporter
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
19,798
Location
USA / Europe
Most doctors consider stress to be an inescapable fact of daily life, but something that is of concern to only genetically pre-disposed people or ones who have CVD. The official version is that for most people stress does NOT cause adverse health outcomes. However, this house of cards has stated to collapse over the last 5 years or so. This latest study shows that stress changes the composition of gut bacteria in highly adverse manner matching almost perfectly the same change induced by high fat (PUFA) diet. And as I mentioned in a few other studies, eating high PUFA diet basically mimics the aging/disease process.
High PUFA Diet Is Pro-aging, Diabetogenic, And Increases Cortisol
High PUFA Diet Effectively The Same As Diabetes, Aging And Cancer

So, now we can say that stress also mimics/accelerates the aging/disease process. While the change in microbiome only happened in female mice, the male mice also showed adaptation to high stress levels such as reduced locomotion and exploration - animal symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Gender-based differences in host behavior and gut microbiota composition in response to high fat diet and stress in a mouse model
https://news.byu.edu/news/study-shows-stress-could-be-just-unhealthy-junk-food-women
"...In a new paper published in Nature Scientific Reports, BYU professor of microbiology and molecular biology Laura Bridgewater found that when female mice were exposed to stress, their gut microbiota — the microorganisms vital to digestive and metabolic health — changed to look like the mice had been eating a high-fat diet. “Stress can be harmful in a lot of ways, but this research is novel in that it ties stress to female-specific changes in the gut microbiota,” Bridgewater said. “We sometimes think of stress as a purely psychological phenomenon, but it causes distinct physical changes.”

"...The researchers found fascinating differences between genders: Male mice on the high-fat diet exhibited more anxiety than females on the high-fat diet, and high-fat males also showed decreased activity in response to stress. However, it was only in female mice that stress caused the gut microbiota composition to shift as if the animals were on a high-fat diet. While the study was only carried out on animals, researchers believe there could be significant implications for humans."
 

Atman

Member
Joined
Dec 10, 2016
Messages
393
Now you face the enormous task to have to define stress and why it has increased so much in the last decades.

Psychosomatics is something which is usually neglected on this forum, which has become more and more supplement oriented over the years.
We are usually only talking about one direction, i.e. how do material causes (what we let run through our digestive tract) influence our psyche (mood, etc.)
But it also goes the other way around, the psychological environment manifests in our physiology.

The question which arises then is whether the psychological or material environment has the most detrimental effect on people today.
I am more and more convinced it's the former.
 

Thoushant

Member
Joined
Mar 2, 2015
Messages
211
I don't know much about the US medical system, the regulations involved and the insurance policies, but I know it's different, and it's a problem.
The European health care systems, especially Scandinavian countries have a big focus on stress.
EDIT: So there is a big focus on enviornmental stress in jobs, jobs often describe how their social activities are of good quality , there are different methods that all try to improve on this, like hiring someone to look at current situation, I guess at the end it's for the company's gain, but it's something..

Ray Peat in an article states stress can leave lasting marks, changes in connective tissue.

@Atman, I like the way you think. I think modern societies and MSM can push towards confusion hysteria, guilt etc.
 
Last edited:

Dobbler

Member
Joined
Jun 19, 2016
Messages
680
I completely agree, and im doing everything i possibly can, but its hard when your mental health is like house of cards. One bad conversation with parents or angry call from teachers send me down. It can take days to recover even a little bit from something that normal person would mentally recover in 10 minutes. Im sure my adrenals and nervous system are fried af.
Right now im taking a complete break from gym training because thats what started this mess 4 years back. Im soon 3 weeks in and im seeing a small improvement. Last time i took a break it took me 6 months before i was able to do something. Im never doing "failure" training again trust me it will eat you alive.
 
Joined
May 29, 2013
Messages
351
I've posted this before, but it resonates with an email reply I received from Peat a few months ago.

Q: I hope this finds you well. I'm wondering whether you believe it's physiologically possible for the bulk of physical health problems to come from mental stress? Too big a workload, too big a sense of obligation, not enough socialising etc.

Even if one consumed adequate protein, sugar, essential nutrients, could mental loads still impair digestion and burden the metabolism?


A: Yes, stresses of that sort can kill, disrupting various systems.

Great post. Thanks, Haidut.
 

charlie

Admin
The Law & Order Admin
Joined
Jan 4, 2012
Messages
14,359
Location
USA
I've posted this before, but it resonates with an email reply I received from Peat a few months ago.

Q: I hope this finds you well. I'm wondering whether you believe it's physiologically possible for the bulk of physical health problems to come from mental stress? Too big a workload, too big a sense of obligation, not enough socialising etc.

Even if one consumed adequate protein, sugar, essential nutrients, could mental loads still impair digestion and burden the metabolism?


A: Yes, stresses of that sort can kill, disrupting various systems.

Great post. Thanks, Haidut.
Hope you do not mind......







:rightagain
 

lexis

Member
Joined
Jan 25, 2014
Messages
430
Now you face the enormous task to have to define stress and why it has increased so much in the last decades.

Joys which people had in earlier times are not there anymore. Imagine,the joy of receiving a handwritten
letter from someone.Now that everything is happening without hassle,there is no gratitude.
 

fradon

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2017
Messages
605
We use our brains more that's why...everything is brain intensive these days.
 

tomisonbottom

Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2013
Messages
920
I've posted this before, but it resonates with an email reply I received from Peat a few months ago.

Q: I hope this finds you well. I'm wondering whether you believe it's physiologically possible for the bulk of physical health problems to come from mental stress? Too big a workload, too big a sense of obligation, not enough socialising etc.

Even if one consumed adequate protein, sugar, essential nutrients, could mental loads still impair digestion and burden the metabolism?


A: Yes, stresses of that sort can kill, disrupting various systems.

WOWSERS.

Good reminder! Thanks for sharing.
 
OP
haidut

haidut

Member
Forum Supporter
Joined
Mar 18, 2013
Messages
19,798
Location
USA / Europe
The Research Diets D12492 used in this study is found at this link: D12492 Formula - Research Diets, Inc.

@haidut, With 60% of the fats being Lard 245 g and Soy 25g why would you call this a PUFA diet? Seems like more saturated then PUFA.

Peat spoke about this several times. Lard is most certainly NOT high in saturated fat. Lard composition tracks very closely what pigs eat and their fat is very much like ours - affected by out diet. And even in pigs not fed grain diet the lard is still not high in SFA. In grass fed pigs, lard is mostly MUFA and then SFA, with 11% PUFA.
Lard - Wikipedia

So, assuming lard has 39% SFA (which is a gross overestimation due to the unknown diet of the pigs) then if 60% of the fats being lard (245g) and soy (25g), then the SFA would be 0.39 * 0.6 * (245 / 270) = ~21% SFA. That is certainly NOT a high SFA diet. A high SFA diet would be one where most of the fat would be in the form of coconut oil. Any scientists calling lard a "high SFA diet" is either corrupt or slept through their biochemistry classes.
 

tonto

Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2014
Messages
60
Thanks Haidut. Do you call diets "PUFA diets" if they have a certain % PUFA? What is that level or threshold? I recall Ray saying in an interview that just the addition of Soy will impact outcomes, so maybe just the addition of soy in this diet is enough to confound the results.
 

stargazer1111

Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2017
Messages
425
Don't forget sugar's role in this. It shuts down the stress response. I have a number of deep psychological/brain problems that cause me excessive amounts of stress (this is part of why my health took a nosedive when I was younger). Sugar is literally the only thing I have ever encountered that combats this for me so I eat as much as I want at this point.
 

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom