
“Stress Hormone” Cortisol Linked to Early Toll on Thinking Ability - brahmwg
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ldquo-stress-hormone-rdquo-cortisol-linked-to-early-toll-on-thinking-ability/?fbclid=IwAR0D45Rg_mM3aFJ5_T0-zQeJkk1P3ErQNOy1PW9qTM1X71HAEUb3cB2l1H8
======
greendestiny_re
I recently ghostwrote a sizable text on diabetes, with one part dedicated to
cortisol.

In short, cortisol is secreted due to a real or _perceived_ threat, meaning
that by framing everything around us as challenges we avoid activating the HPA
(hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal) axis that normally works during danger. Rats
put in stressful situations showed a propensity to gorge on sweet and fatty
food (cookies), since they impacted the brain just as much as natural
endorphins; the rats were trying to calm themselves down after stress. The
literature is monumental, one study is here [PDF]:

[https://www.medicinasistemica.it/doc/biblioteca/Stress,%20ea...](https://www.medicinasistemica.it/doc/biblioteca/Stress,%20eating%20and%20the%20reward%20system.pdf)

There are no threats, only challenges.

~~~
gdubs
Is this why I eat crappy food when I’m under the weather?

~~~
greendestiny_re
The PDF I linked above shows that taking Naloxone, opiod antagonist, reduces
the desire for junk food, meaning it's a literal addiction; trying to just
quit cold turkey is just like opiod withdrawal that causes even more stress
and binge eating.

Exercise helps, but again don't overdo it because you'll be causing more
stress. Tai Chi (slow-motion kung fu) has been found to really help, take a
look here:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18927159](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18927159)

In some patients after 12 weeks of Tai Chi the metabolic syndrome, the dreaded
pot belly that occurs because there are abundant cortisol receptors in the
abdomen, shrinks or disappears completely.

------
vfc1
Companies that have work environments that induce a lot of stress in their
employees should pay more to society as opposed to companies that have low
stress working environments, probably under the form of a tax of some sort.

It is clearer than ever at this point that high stress causes employees to
underperform, and develop chronic physical and mental illnesses.

These diseases will end getting paid by society under one form or another,
either by paying unemployment to burned out employees, paying the treatment of
chronic illnesses, mental health care, etc.

So nothing fairer that companies that chew people alive and spit them out to
become more socially accountable for what they are doing.

Not to mention the huge impact that this has on the stressed employee kids and
family, by having to deal with a chronically stressed parent.

These companies are sometimes killing people, literally. They should not be
allowed to continue to get away with it like its 1980.

~~~
arandr0x
This is one thing I thought was nice about the US healthcare system, that it
aligns the economic incentives of companies with having healthier employees
relative to other companies. Maybe countries that have a more efficient single
payer system should nevertheless add a "Healthy Workforce Tax Credit" of some
sort?

~~~
coldtea
> _This is one thing I thought was nice about the US healthcare system, that
> it aligns the economic incentives of companies with having healthier
> employees relative to other companies._

In what way do companies have an economic interest to have healthier
employees?

Heck, in the US they can even just fire them when they get sick.

~~~
mikestew
_Heck, in the US they can even just fire them when they get sick._

Well, they _could_ , yes. But wouldn't company counsel advise them to just
settle the inevitable lawsuit? (Serious question, BTW; not like this IANAL
follows the case law.)

~~~
aidenn0
The FMLA covers specific things you may take unpaid leave for and must have
your job when you come back.

There are a couple problems with this:

1) It's only for fairly serious conditions. If it's just "I feel like crap all
the time because I've been stressed out for years" then in most states they
can fire you.

2) It's unclear to me (IANAL as well) if they are required to extend non-pay
benefits to you in that time, but I think not. So if they do not extend health
insurance to you in that time, then you might be able to come back, but you'll
be bankrupt.

------
csr86
I never believed that stress could be harmful. It seemed "mental" issue rather
than "real" physical problem.

Until I got blinded by stress! Excess stress hormone can even damage your
eyes, its called central serous retinopathy... My central vision is gone and
have hard time reading, I cant continue my career as programmer anymore.

Its surprising how damaging excess cortisol can be to a person

~~~
phito
I had a huge stress period last September. During that month, I passed out
twice and had 3 hour-long panick attacks.

Since then, I've had jaw pain, constant pressure headaches, vision troubles,
vertigo, depersonalization/derealization, and feel totally weak physically.

I've seen so many doctors this month, and they all told me the same thing:
it's stress. It's crazy to see how one very stressfull week has totally fucked
up my whole body, and that two months after I'm still not fully recovered from
it, and I don't think I will every feel totally normal again.

Sorry you had a similar experience and got lasting damages from it, I wish you
the best for the future.

~~~
Raphmedia
Take a look at minerals too. I have a tendency when stressed to drink a lot of
caffeine during the day and then alcohol at night. Stress also drops my body
temperature and I start to urinate a lot, up to the point that my urine is
completely clear and I keep going. Those things drop my levels of magnesium.
When my magnesium is low, I start to have jaw pain and eye tics. Those then
trigger more stress.

It took me a lot of time to figure out this vicious circle. Your body might
not work the same but I encourage you to look at the problem from every angle.

~~~
phito
Yeah, I started taking magnesium supplements, a month ago, but I don't feel
like it's helping in any way for now. Maybe it just takes time

------
orasis
I experienced severe cognitive decline in my 20s from the stress of running a
startup.

The most alarming part was the loss of vocabulary. I was an avid reader and
couldn’t call to mind fairly simple multi-syllablic words.

It took 5 years of bumming around in the mountains to heal the damage.

~~~
seandhi
For what it’s worth, I had a very similar thing happen to me. I guess I never
made the connection until now. After a year, my intellectual curiosity is just
starting to return. That you feel repaired gives me hope.

~~~
orasis
10 years later I’m now operating at 100% but I’m extremely careful to be
stress avoidant.

For the first 3 years of doing almost nothing productive the progress was
quite slow.

In retrospect, a couple of high dose psilocybin sessions may have sped up
recovery by reprogramming some of my identity that was at the core of the
stress.

~~~
RikNieu
How do you make a living though? One cannot just 'do nothing productive' and
pay rent and bills?

------
chiefalchemist
Not to get off topic, but this is further proof that poverty is more than a
financial condition.

~~~
ak39
I believe it is. OECD considers this under the broad heading
"intergenerational transmission of disadvantage". In a crude way, it is
equivalent to saying that poverty is largely hereditary (sic). This, if the
factors at play to break this intergenerational poverty cycle are things like
IQ, scholastic performance and even basic literacy.

If the impoverished are living cortisol-stress-filled lives epigenetics
explains the offspring to suffer the same physiological conditions. However,
there are folks who have individually bootstrapped out of these conditions of
inherited poverty (the so-called self-mades), but these breeds are rare. The
vast majority of the poor continue to produce offspring who aren't given a
chance to grow up on a stress-free environment.

Edit: I think I may have been hasty with my reply. You were talking of the
impact of stress on causing individuals to make poor financial decisions. My
reply went into cycle of poverty.

~~~
chiefalchemist
I was talking about both. That is, as I feel you also stated, poverty is a
symptom. It is not a personal choice. Instead it is what happen when you
subject people to stress, lack of hope, lack of opportunity, bad food, sub-par
living conditions, violence, evictions, etc.

Long to short, you don't cure poverty. You aim to cure the things that create,
drive and perpetuate it. And you certainly don't blame those caught in the
cycle.

------
bad_user
Stress has a lot of damaging effects in our body. For example it also causes
high blood sugar, because it puts your body in a _fight or flight_ mode. High
blood sugar gives rise to higher insulin levels, which inhibits leptin and
gives you insulin resistance and thus you can develop symptoms of the
metabolic syndrome, if not full blown T2 diabetes. Cortisol is also correlated
with high levels of ghrelin, the hunger hormone.

This is why if you're stressed ... you can develop diabetes, heart disease,
obesity and who knows what else. Stress is an evolved tactic to escape short
term dangers. But humans are not designed to be stressed all the time.

I have a close friend that developed diabetes following a period of high
stress due to his small business going broke.

Take care of your health first. And sleep 8 hours per day.

------
eganist
> Brain changes, visible on scans, are also associated with Alzheimer’s
> precursors

Interesting. Since they're speculating a link between cortisol and alzheimer's
and there's already established linkages between cortisol and herpes
reactivation [1], herpes spreading to the brain in certain vulnerable
populations [2], herpes activation in the brain and an amyloid response [3],
and a potential mitigation for symptoms by arresting herpes activation [4], I
wonder if the cortisol/alzheimer's link might evaporate of the
herpes/alzheimer's hypothesis continues to prove out in drug trials?

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5469259/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5469259/)

[2]
[https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(18)30526-9](https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273\(18\)30526-9)

[3]
[https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(18)30526-9](https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273\(18\)30526-9)

[4]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17540094](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17540094)

\--

Substantially reworked the comment given some of the confusion the initial
comment seemed to generate. I'm pretty passionate about this angle, as past
commentary of mine here might indicate.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17945738](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17945738)

~~~
corndoge
this comment makes no sense

~~~
jacobolus
The context is there is a theory that herpes viruses are linked to
Alzheimer’s. See e.g. [https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2018/06/21/6219083...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2018/06/21/621908340/researchers-find-herpes-viruses-in-brains-marked-
by-alzheimers-disease)

~~~
stephengillie
There are many theories about the cause of Alzheimer's.

Previously on HN:

\- Alzheimer's is caused by dirty air.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18230932](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18230932)

\- Alzheimer's is caused by lack of sleep.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18228627](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18228627)

\- Alzheimer's is a form of diabetes.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4578267](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4578267)

\- Alzheimer's is caused by herpes.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18265115](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18265115)

Also, brain damage is a _result_ of Alzheimer's, not a _cause_.

~~~
adrianN
I wouldn't be surprised if eventually we'll figure that what we call
"Alzheimer's" is in fact a whole bunch of different diseases that all cause
plaque buildup in the brain.

~~~
majewsky
Same with atopic dermatitis. Everytime I talk to someone and they notice the
red patches on my skin and I say it's atopic dermatitis, they immediately
start rambling about how the friend of their cousin's barber totally got that
fixed up with that magical treatment and I _have_ to try it. At which point I
tell them that atopic dermatitis is mostly a symptom, not a single disease.

------
klvino
Question, why was a Facebook click event (fbclid) query string included in the
URL for this article? Did you find the article on Facebook and forget to
remove the string, which results in anyone on this site that clicks on the
string to be identified to Scientific American's site analytics as having come
from a Facebook page, and thus mis-attributing traffic.

------
drtse4
That _fbclid_ appended to the url.

~~~
Raphmedia
Hey at least now it's public and not hidden somewhere deep in Facebook's
shadow profiles code.

------
abainbridge
Asthmatics might be interested to know that many of the long-term treatments
use molecules based on cortisol. Check out the similarity of these:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cortisol)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budesonide](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budesonide)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beclometasone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beclometasone)

This is because one of the effects of cortisol is to suppress immune response.

And, just a thought, there was news recently that the incidence of Alzheimer's
was reduced in people on long-term anti-viral drugs. The hypothesis being that
Alzheimer's is partially caused by a virus. High cortisol levels (or their
related asthma treatment molecules) would reduce immune response and therefore
we could predict today's result from the previous one. I've probably over
simplified the situation.

~~~
rhexs
Man, allergists might actually have to do some real science soon instead of
coasting on diphenhydramine, prednisone, selling shots, and various other
remedies that haven't changed since 1955.

Oh yeah, forgot monoclonal antibodies, the new, ungodly expensive series of IV
drugs that have amazingly awful side-effects. Can't wait to see what those do
to bodies 10-50 years down the line.

------
bsenftner
Pretty light article. For those thinking they have too much stress, run it
off. Our systems treat stress the same way it did back when stress meant fight
for survival. The body needs one to exert at a high cardio rate during and
after stress. That is our natural response. Not backing stress with a sweat
inducing release is what causes all these negatives.

~~~
mistermann
This sounds like good advice but is it theoretical or is it actually backed by
science?

~~~
dsfyu404ed
It's pretty well proven that reduced stress is one of the (many) benefits of
regular exercise

------
TazeTSchnitzel
This is one way in which the effects of poverty and social exclusion compound.
Poor people are of course more stressed.

------
leoh
Does anyone know a good way to test cortisol on one's own?

~~~
GiorgioG
Get a blood test? If you’re in the US and don’t want to have to convince your
doctor why you need/want this test, just order it yourself from a place like
healthlabs.com - I don’t work for them - I’m a satisfied customer.

~~~
dreamdu5t
Cortisol levels vary all the time... a blood test would only measure cortisol
at one point in time.

~~~
krtkush
There are cortisol tests which which require you to submit urine sample of the
whole day - from morning to evening.

~~~
koolba
Does it have to be done in a lab or is there a ph or ketostix like device that
could measure it at home?

~~~
dwich
I don't know of a device that can measure it at home, but there are mail-in
saliva cortisol kits from companies like Genova Diagnostics, Labrix, and ZRT
Labs. You usually send them several samples collected at specific times
throughout the day.

They're mostly designed to be ordered by a healthcare professional, but you
can get a few of them direct on Amazon, or through companies that order on
your behalf (similar to healthlabs.com mentioned above).

------
bitL
For anyone coping with huge amount of stress, try the following:

\- deep breathing for a minute (should significantly reduce cortisol)

\- take sauna (proper hot/cold cycles)

~~~
matwood
> \- deep breathing for a minute (should significantly reduce cortisol)

If true, this shows that there is a controllable mental component to stress.
First step is recognizing when you are stressed. A mental technique I use is
to pretend I'm outside my body watching my response. This helps me put things
in perspective and calm down. A technology thing I use is my Apple Watch. It
alerts me if my heart rate goes up without also moving like I would for
exercise. It's a quick reminder to stop, relax. I rarely get alerts from the
AW anymore, because I've become attuned to recognizing when stress is oncoming
and I can take measures to calm down.

My final technique is exercise every single day. I tend to workout right when
I wake up, but if life gets in the way I sometimes do not get to it until
later. But, it is an exceptional day if I miss a workout.

------
jpfed
The great thing about chronic childhood stress is that it paradoxically lowers
cortisol levels later in life. Take that, Alzheimer's!

------
tinktank
Well, that's me done. I live on Cortisol.

~~~
espeed
I did too a few years back, and it clouds the brain no-doubt. It got to the
point where something had to be done, and so I set everything aside and
dedicated 6 months to figuring out how to fix it.

Read this book: _Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the
Brain_ by John Ratey
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ratey](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ratey)),
the professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

I have posted on the effects of sprints several times over the years so rather
than repost again, here's a link to the threads:
[https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&date...](https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byPopularity&prefix&page=0&dateRange=all&type=comment&query=espeed%20spark%20sprints)

Running sprints were key, but inflammation due to diet was part of it too (a
latent issue not widely discussed, but a factor more common than you might
think). I solved that by eliminating certain foods one by one that are known
to cause inflammation. Peanuts were one, and eliminating aspartame (diet coke)
had a noticeable effect within just a few days (I verified it wasn't the
caffeine by adding back tea and coffee, and those had no noticeable effect).

Here's some links to the original Harvard and USG research findings on the
issues with aspartame and artificial sweeteners/flavors in general, like why
it's banned it baby food:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6703802](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6703802)

------
Clanan
I think a huge component of this is the ever-present stigma of mental health
and counseling. People who are incredibly stressed and suffering mentally and
physically should be able to visit a therapist as easily as they can a doctor.
When they don't, or feel like they can't, they lose the chance to learn
helpful coping mechanisms and life strategies which can have a drastic impact.

------
vectorEQ
people think they can tell others how to reduce stress, this is dumb. stress
is personal, and how you deal with it is personal, so self-reflect, and listen
to yourself, if you are having the idea you are impacted negativly by your
stress.

look at it this way: you have so many input bandwidth. stress is the input.
any input causes stress, but there is plenty of bandwidth generally to handle
this. only when there is too many incomming bandwidth, it can lead to loss /
DOS. It's personal what packets you want to handle and which you'd like to
drop. this is what you can only decide for yourself.

so there is no magic bullet some researcher will invent for you to feel
relaxed again. you need to figure that out for yourself. someone can guide you
along your way but not tell you the way you should go... if you let people
choose for you, this will lead to MORE STRESS

------
accnumnplus1
A relevant podcast: [https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/burnout-
diaries/id124788...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/burnout-
diaries/id1247886202?mt=2)

------
Apaec
Does anyone know the relationship between stress and hair loss?

~~~
espeed
Are you referring to clumps of hair falling out on a woman, or male-pattern
baldness?

------
leptoniscool
Any food that can lower cortisol?

~~~
BLKNSLVR
Answering the inverse of your question: caffeine increases cortisol
production.

The quicker solution to reducing cortisol may be to cut down on caffeine than
to eat more cortisol inhibiting foods.

As much as that may be considered a personally offensive suggestion to a lot
of people...

~~~
dreamdu5t
Note that caffeine does _not_ increase cortisol, it reduces the time your body
takes to clear/lower cortisol.

~~~
eksemplar
Reduces? Because then that’s the opposite of what the other guy was saying,
and we should all drown our stress with caffeine.

~~~
staticassertion
Reduces the time to _remove the cortisol_.

~~~
eksemplar
Well, a reduction in the time it takes to remove the bad thing, is a positive,
isn’t it?

~~~
mango7283
I think what they means is that the amount removed per unit time remains the
same, so if the body spends less time removing cortisol there will be a
buildup.

~~~
wallace_f
this is hilarious. two comments from two different users made the same
apparent mistakes with their intended meaning.

------
User23
More garbage tier science reporting portraying a single metric as somehow
being an overwhelming determiner of health.

If you want to be healthy it's easy, just do the following: Eat fresh foods.
Get aerobic exercise. Get resistance exercise. Get enough sleep. Abstain from
drugs and alcohol, or at least partake temperately. Have good genes and a
healthy developmental environment. Those last two are on one's parents, not
oneself.

~~~
stephengillie
"Health" "News" is neither healthy nor news.

------
ckdarby
Instagram. It is that simple, instagram is straight up cancer, well, actually
most social networks but the current major cancer is Instagram.

My GF is glued to her phone. The amount of circle jerking that happens with
women and social media is utterly crazy. Bring this up as the article mentions
it seems to be higher in women and when I looked around in day to day life I
see more women glued to instagram than men (Don't have stats to back it up).

I wouldn't be surprised if they found a link between this and users who use
social networks more as well.

Edit: Maybe "circle jerk" wasn't the right phrase to use...

~~~
gaius
_I see more women glued to instagram than men_

There is certainly some evidence that women and men use social media
differently; Pinterest is 81% women for example, and only 7% of posts are by
men. Instagram is 68% women. I don't know of any social media that is male-
dominated in the same extent. LinkedIn is 56% men, Twitter 57%.

~~~
gyaru
> I don't know of any social media that is male-dominated in the same extent.

Reddit, most likely HN too.

~~~
gaius
_Reddit, most likely HN too._

That would be stretching my personal definition of social media, but yes
Reddit does publish figures showing it's pretty much exactly as skewed towards
men as Instagram is towards women, very interesting. I wonder about Strava,
there seems to be no data available on that, maybe because it isn't ad-
supported.

The reason I'm not so sure as neither Reddit nor HN are oriented around the
personal profile in the same way as the others are. HN could (probably should)
go completely "anonymous coward" and it would be no less useful.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
How does Reddit know?

~~~
Scriptor
They use the marketing companies that use 3rd party cookies to track you on
every site you visit.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
So it's "you self-reported you were [fe]male on some other site; you didn't
block scripts; ergo you're [fe]male".

Actually this [https://www.techjunkie.com/demographics-
reddit/](https://www.techjunkie.com/demographics-reddit/) lists a few sources.
The primary one appears to be Pew Research, the methodology is interesting
[http://www.journalism.org/2016/02/25/reddit-
methodology/](http://www.journalism.org/2016/02/25/reddit-methodology/).

They random dialled, then surveyed 6000 people, ~4500 agreed to be surveyed
further (with cash incentive), of those ~300 are Reddit users and the stats
are taken from there. You can choose to do the survey by web or regular mail
.. respondents who agree to be surveyed by mail actually take the survey at a
level of 20%; if I read correctly they assume none of those sent the mail
survey are net users.

The point of the survey was analysing political activity.

It seems likely to give only broad indications at best. Unfortunately this
result from < 300 USAmericans seems to be repeated as "this is the global
demographic of Reddit" in a few places.

