Stress

Stress and its Consequences

I am often sceptically asked the following question: “How can emotions and/or emotional stress cause physical illnesses?” I, in turn, respond to the patient by asking some questions, which invariably results in a somewhat embarrassed smile, followed by an apology, as well as an acknowledgement by the patient that my questions make sense. What are the questions? They are, “Haven’t most of us ‘fallen in love’? What happened then with your bowels? How often did you run to the bathroom? Did you not have a rapid heart beat? Could you speak eloquently, or did you have a 'frog' in your throat?” Who has not experienced such emotions concurrently with the above physical features? Therefore, what I describe represent the PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES of POSITIVE emotions! If there are physical consequences due to positive emotions, which PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES have been confirmed to arise from NEGATIVE emotions?

Unfortunately, many of us experience and live though highly charged negative stressful emotional events. One of the major negative emotional events which many of us are subjected to, is that of work stress! Work stress is a rich source of major physical and emotional problems for all and sundry! Very serious consequences ensue when we wish to ignore the reality of stress.

When someone is under stress, irrespective of the nature thereof, a number of events takes place:

A large amount of our body’s own stress hormone, Cortisol, has to be made. Very, very interesting is the fact that the building blocks (raw material) of Cortisol are Cholesterol! Therefore, more stress means more Cortisol, while Cortisol in turn produces in turn increases Fats and Sugars in the body. Furthermore, for our body to manufacture increased amounts of Cortisol, our body has to supply greater amounts of Cholesterol. Thus stress causes an increase in blood pressure as well as an increase in blood glucose. In emergency medicine and surgical wards, this increase in blood sugar seen in patients suffering from the stress of broken bones or heart attacks is called the "diabetes of injury." On the other hand, when anyone is under stress, while your body cannot produce Cortisol due to a number of reasons, the ill and stressed patient paradoxically have low blood pressure and very low blood sugar, called an Acute Adrenal Insufficiency. The following article confirms my statements:

“Perceived Work Overload and Chronic Worrying Predict Weekend–Weekday Differences in the Cortisol Awakening Response.” Wolff Schlotz, et al. Psychosomatic Medicine 66:207-214, 2004.

http://intl.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/full/66/2/207

Their conclusions were that during stressful weekdays much higher levels of Cortisol were produced in the body.

Increased Cortisol leads to a host of other major health problems. The following article confirms what work stress, anger or suppressed anger, hostility and antagonistic interactions, cynicism, mistrust, depression and anxiety can do to people.

Heart and mind: (1) relationship between cardiovascular and psychiatric conditions. S U Shah et al. Postgraduate Medical Journal 2004; 80: 683-689.

http://pmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/80/950/683

Their conclusions were that work stress, anger or suppressed anger, etc., cause increased Cortisol, blood glucose, Cholesterol, Free fattyacids, Insulin. Effects on the heart are, amongst others, an irregular heart rate and thickening of the arteries (atherosclerosis)!

We must therefore conclude that anyone would tend be mildly diabetic on very stressful days! That cannot be positive at all!

This last article confirms then that the consequences of broken bones or heart attacks, on the one hand, to be virtually the same as work stress, anger or suppressed anger, hostility and antagonistic interactions, cynicism, mistrust, depression and anxiety on the other hand.

The following diagram shows the cholesterol molecule as the raw material from which not only Cortisol (Glucocorticoids) is made, but also our male sex hormone Testosterone (Androgens), the female sex hormone Estrogen (Oestrogens), as well as Bile acids and salts without which Vitamin A, D, E and K as well as fats, cannot be absorbed into the body, and lastly vitamin D. Does cholesterol not represent an unbelievably intelligent system? One molecule, from which so many diverse and irreplaceably important hormones are made! My question is then: “Why is cholesterol made to be wicked?” Who gives medical scientists the right to meddle so unsophisticatedly in such a sophisticated system?

Stress also means more Adrenalin, which in turn leads to higher blood pressure and a faster beating heart. Therefore, one's heart would then be doing the work of two days work during a period of one day!

Effects of Work Stress on Ambulatory Blood Pressure, Heart Rate, and Heart Rate Variability. Tanja G. M. Vrijkotte et al. Hypertension. 2000; 35: 880.

http://hyper.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/full/35/4/880

This study found that highly stressed workers have higher blood pressure and faster heart rates in general, even during their sleep.

The following two articles, from among many other similar articles, confirm that an angry personality and work stress, for example, results in atherosclerosis which can lead to angina, and acute heart attacks.

a. Anger-Related Personality Traits and Carotid Artery Atherosclerosis in Untreated Hypertensive Men. Maria E. Bleil, et al. Psychosomatic Medicine 66:633-639, 2004.

http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/full/66/5/633

Their conclusions were: “An antagonistic disposition (Trait Anger), particularlya tendency to experience anger on minimal provocation (AngryTemperament) and a propensity to express anger outwardly (Anger-Out),are associated with heightened carotid atherosclerosis.”

b. Interaction of workplace demands and cardiovascular reactivity in progression of carotid atherosclerosis: population based study. BMJ 1997; 314:553 (22 February) Susan A Everson, et al.

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/314/7080/553

Some of the conclusions of this study were:

· Psychological stress plays an important part in the illness and premature death associated with cardiovascular disease, but individual susceptibility to disease varies according to biological predispositions, personality, behaviour, and environmental exposures.

· This study found that a demanding work environment in combination with a predisposition to exaggerated blood pressure reactivity to stress was significantly related to progression of carotid atherosclerosis over four years among employed middle aged men and was independent of known atherosclerotic risk factors.

Scurvy and atherosclerosis:

Scurvy is due to an absence of vitamin C, highlighting the importance of fresh foods and vitamins. The absence of vitamin C results in extremely weak collagen fibers which causes a breakdown of the protein collagen needed for connective tissue, bones and dentin. A lack of collagen causes the walls of the body's blood capillaries to break down and bleeding occurs in tissues throughout the body. When capillaries lose the "glue" that holds them together, symptoms of scurvy appear. First visible signs of scurvy generally are bleeding around the hair follicles of the legs, buttocks, arms and back, after about five months on a diet deficient in vitamin C. Later on the gums bleed, teeth loosen and eating becomes difficult and painful with general weakness and joint pain. Internal bleeding causes black-and-blue marks to appear on the skin! A miserable death follows soon! Many Dutch sailors, for example, died on boats sailing from the Netherlands via the Cape to the East. In an article in the South African Medical Journal of February 2006, Dr JC de Villiers recalls the terrible ordeals of scurvy. Many examples are mentioned by him, such as that of the ship the Vosmeer, which arrived in Table Bay on 16 October 1696, with "more than hundred dead and the rest sick, had only four healthy seamen in the ship. Set out from Zeeland with 225 crew on 26th April,..."

Atherosclerosis or thickening of the arteries develops due to a chronic deficiency of Vitamin C, not a complete absence of vitamin C as in Scurvy. When a crack develops in a blood vessel wall due to the chronic deficiency of vitamin C, certain fat packages in the blood have the ability to plug the leak like “polyfilla”. Plugging the crack in the blood vessel avoids death due to scurvy but unfortunately sets the stage for blood vessel disease, angina, heart attacks or stroke, amongst many other problems.

In order to produce more Cortisol and Adrenalin due to the stress one may be subjected to, our body requires a larger amount of Vitamin C. The highest Vitamin C concentration in any tissue is found in the adrenal gland. Why would the adrenal gland store so much of it? Studies have shown that Vitamin C is needed to manufacture Cortisol and Adrenalin. It is therefore not surprising that one is in need of much larger amounts of Vitamin C when under stress. A very, very important study, which is ignored to this day by the medical fraternity, is the following by Willis, done in 1957! He scientifically confirmed that atherosclerosis was caused by a deficiency of vitamin C, and more importantly, that the atherosclerosis was reversed by the administration of vitamin C. Why is this very simple inexpensive information not known? The article by Willis can be downloaded from the following website:

The Reversibility of Atherosclerosis. G. C Willis. Canad. M A J., July 15, 1957, vol. 77.

http://vitamincfoundation.org/pdfs/WillisAthero106.pdf

http://vitamincfoundation.org/pdfs/WillisAthero107.pdf

http://vitamincfoundation.org/pdfs/WillisAthero108.pdf

http://vitamincfoundation.org/pdfs/WillisAthero109.pdf

The conclusions were as follows: No atherosclerosis was found in the controls (those animals with vitamin C added from the beginning). The article confirms that when vitamin C is given to scorbutic (lacking vitamin C) guinea-pigs, the early atherosclerotic lesions resorb quickly. The advanced lesions are considerably more resistant to reversal, apparently because of the islands of lipid, whose only contact with the resorbing process is at the surface.

Modern medicine prescribes Statin drugs for patients having high cholesterol levels. The above articles confirm that when stress is a leading cause of high cholesterol levels, should the aim of any intervention not be to solve the causes of the stress, and not the cholesterol? For some of the tragic effects of Statin drugs, kindly read the following book by Dr Strand:

Death By Prescription, The Shocking Truth Behind An Overmedicated Nation, Thomas Nelson Inc, Tennessee , © Ray D Strand 2003.

You may also wish to visit the following website, amongst many others, which documents many of the disastrous consequences of modern medicine's drugs: www.worstpills.org

How do we avoid these pitfalls? In a nutshell, I can only implore everyone to make a conscious decision to live, as much as possible, a balanced and stress-free life. That may be wishful thinking, but yet possible, and entirely depended on making that very difficult decision.