Can Cortisol Trigger Fat Gain?

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Cortisol it the body’s primary stress hormone, but did you know that it can significantly influence how and where your body stores fat for long-term energy reserves. Although a small amount of excess energy is stored as glycogen in the liver and muscles, overall glycogen stores are limited compared to fat storage. Initially, the body converts energy from carbohydrates and fats into triglycerides that are stored in adipose tissue under the skin.

Once fat cells are full, some will enlarge but the body can also create new fat cells, a process called hyperplasia, to accommodate additional fat storage. If the fat storage capacity is exceeded, fat starts to accumulate in other areas of the body, such as around organs or within muscle tissue, but as visceral fat that has been linked to numerous health problems. Generally speaking, weight maintenance depends on the critical balance between calories consumed and calories burned.

As a macronutrient, fat is the most efficient for energy storage in that it contains more than double the calories per gram as compared to carbohydrates or protein. In fact, throughout the history of human survival, fat has allowed people to endure periods of food scarcity by breaking down fat reserves whenever the body needs more energy. However, excess fat accumulation nowadays can result in overweight health conditions, including obesity.

What are the health risks of visceral fat deposits?

Adipose tissue is a connective tissue where fat is stored by the body in adipocytes (fat cells), including underneath the skin as subcutaneous fat and around organs as visceral fat. Visceral fat is the term for adipose tissue located in the abdominal cavity surrounding the body’s organs. Like other adipose tissue, visceral fat serves as an energy reserve and plays a role in crucial hormone regulation. In addition, visceral fat helps protect organs by providing cushioning. While some organ padding is necessary, excessive accumulation of visceral fat increases health risks.

Visceral vs Subcutaneous Fat: The difference in danger of health risks between visceral fat and subcutaneous fat stems primarily from metabolic activity as well as the substances released. Excess visceral fat is more metabolically active and can release free fatty acids and other fat metabolites directly into the liver’s portal system. This can impair hepatic function, lead to fatty liver disease, and cause poor regulation of glucose and insulin metabolism.

Excess fat storage often involves an interaction of hormones like cortisol with lifestyle issues like your diet and exercise. Since fat cells can expand in number and size when there is excess energy consumption, adipocytes fill up with large droplets of triglycerides. Unfortunately, excessive accumulation of visceral fat can release hormones and other substances that contribute to inflammation, insulin resistance, high blood pressure, and an increased risk of developing weight-related chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and certain types of cancer.

Cortisol’s Impact on Unintended Weight Gain

Rather than storing fat just beneath the skin, cortisol surges encourage the body to preferentially store visceral fat around the body’s internal organs. Plus, hormonal surges interfere with enzyme regulation. Since visceral fat is more metabolically active, it releases inflammatory hormones that can further disrupt metabolism by creating a vicious cycle of unintended weight gain and hormonal imbalance, including:

• Increased Food Cravings – High cortisol levels increase appetite for comfort foods like high-calorie, high fat, and sugary delights. Plus, cortisol-related increased food cravings often lead to overeating of less healthy choices.
• Cortisol Production in Tissues – Cortisol influences key enzymes that are involved in fat metabolism. When levels are low, it can break down stored fat, but chronic stress shifts the balance to promoting fat storage.
• Excess Glucose Due to Insulin Resistance – Chronically high levels of cortisol makes cells less responsive to insulin’s signal to absorb glucose and prompts the storage of excess triglycerides as fat.
• Sleep and Hormonal Imbalances – Cortisol spikes interfere with the natural sleep cycle, which leads to poor quality of sleep. This disrupts leptin (satiety) and ghrelin (hunger) hormones which can cause overeating.
• Visceral Fat Accumulation – Fact is visceral fat has a higher concentration of cortisol receptors, which makes it more responsive to cortisol’s signals for fat storing and visceral fat accumulation in abdominal areas.

Without doubt, chronic stress leads to increased cortisol levels that boosts metabolic processes that favor the accumulation of abdominal deposits of visceral fat. Moreover, excessive amounts of cortisol hormone slows metabolism and decreases muscle mass, which reduces the body’s natural ability to burn fat. This unique interplay of increased food cravings, insulin resistance, and enzyme regulation highlights the complexities between poorly managed stress and unwanted fat gain.

Do Women and Men Handle Cortisol Differently?

Yes, indeed. There are similarities as well as unique differences in how excess cortisol hormone effects the fundamental mechanisms for fat storage in women and men. In fact, according to Harvard Health, studies suggest that women are more prone to using comfort foods as a coping mechanism for managing stress. Although men can also experience stress-induced increases in appetite, males are often more inclined to turn to equally or more harmful coping mechanisms like smoking or drinking under pressure.

The way abdominal fat accumulates in women and men can also vary. Often called a cortisol belly, the way it actually looks is influenced by the individual’s body composition and fat distribution, but fat accumulation in either sex is not solely due to excess cortisol hormone. After all, it is important to remember that while men tend to have more visceral fat, women generally have a higher overall percentage of body fat. Studies have suggested that women likely are more susceptible to stress-induced weight gain due to physiological differences.

Overall, cortisol’s impact on unintended weight gain is a universal mechanism, but the interplay of excessive stress combined with biological factors and sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone can result in different looking patterns of fat accumulation in women and men. Moreover, these differences have important implications for associated metabolic health risks. Women are more prone, especially prior to menopause, to store subcutaneous fat in the lower body where men are more prone to accumulating visceral belly fat.

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