You’ve been working on a physics problem for what feels like hours. Suddenly it hits you, “what’s in the pantry? If I had a sweet treat right now, surely, I’d figure this out.” For the most part, stress-eating seems harmless, and for many, it’s an involuntary response. The feelings of stress evoke a different response from each individual, however, is there a relationship between stress and hunger? If so, why are they related?
Although short-term stress is usually correlated with the suppression of hunger cues, long-term chronic stress is linked with weight gain (Chao, et al., 2017). This type of stress is closely related to the disturbance of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA), which is the chain of command between the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenal cortex. The HPA axis is significant because it maintains a kind of homeostasis when it comes to our bodies dealing with long-term stress. The brain releases stress hormones called glucocorticoids which are steroid hormones that come from the adrenal cortex (Chourpiliadis and Aeddula, 2023). These hormones are regulated by the HPA axis regulating glucocorticoids with a negative feedback loop as indicated in Figure 1 below.
The glucocorticoid our brains release when dealing with stress is cortisol, and once there is too much cortisol in the blood, that is an indication to the hypothalamus and anterior pituitary to stop releasing tropic hormones. Cortisol stimulates the increase of glucose in the blood (Marik and Bellomo, 2013). It is also an antagonist to insulin, and insulin lowers your blood sugar. Cortisol binds to pancreatic β-cells that inhibit the intake of glucose, further inhibiting metabolism. This pattern signals to the body that it needs more food, thus causing us to crave sugary foods that are full of glucose (Janssen, 2022). Not only does this long-term stress cause an increase in weight but it also perpetuates the breakdown of amino acids present in muscle to turn them into glucose. This process is called glyconeogenesis, which is how we convert glucogenic amino acids into glucose through a series of oxidation reactions and phosphorylation. This process begins when the body needs energy and has to resort to other storage for glucose in order to further create ATP (Thau, Gandhi, and Sharma, 2023). The process of glyconeogenesis starts with pyruvate present in the amino acids and can be seen in Figure 2 below.
Forcing the body to resort to storage-like muscle causes the deterioration of muscle to fuel the body with enough glucose to combat the cortisol-inhibiting insulin. Although stress accumulates in many aspects of students’ lives, there are real physiological effects of stress that can be dangerous if a highly stressful lifestyle is sustained. However, understanding these seemingly involuntary responses can act as an indicator to tell us what exactly our bodies need.
References
Chao, A.M., Jastreboff, A.M., White, M.A., Grilo, C.M. and Sinha, R., 2017. Stress, cortisol, and other appetite-related hormones: Prospective prediction of 6-month changes in food cravings and weight. Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.), 25(4), pp.713–720. https://doi.org/10.1002/oby.21790.
Chourpiliadis, C. and Aeddula, N.R., 2023. Physiology, Glucocorticoids. In: StatPearls. [online] Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing. Available at: <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK560897/> [Accessed 18 November 2023].
Janssen, J.A.M.J.L., 2022. New Insights into the Role of Insulin and Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) Axis in the Metabolic Syndrome. International Journal of Molecular Sciences, 23(15), p.8178. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijms23158178.
Marik, P.E. and Bellomo, R., 2013. Stress hyperglycemia: an essential survival response! Critical Care, 17(2), p.305. https://doi.org/10.1186/cc12514.
Mikulska, J., Juszczyk, G., Gawrońska-Grzywacz, M. and Herbet, M., 2021. HPA Axis in the Pathomechanism of Depression and Schizophrenia: New Therapeutic Strategies Based on Its Participation. Brain Sciences, 11(10), p.1298. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci11101298.
Sanders, L.M., 2016. Carbohydrate: Digestion, Absorption and Metabolism. In: B. Caballero, P.M. Finglas and F. Toldrá, eds. Encyclopedia of Food and Health. [online] Oxford: Academic Press. pp.643–650. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-384947-2.00114-8.
Thau, L., Gandhi, J. and Sharma, S., 2023. Physiology, Cortisol. In: StatPearls. [online] Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing. Available at: <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK538239/> [Accessed 18 November 2023].
Comments
10 Responses to “Hungry? Or Just Stressed…”
Hey Julie,
As someone prone to my fair share of snack breaks while studying I appreciated your post on stress-induced hunger! Here are just a couple of suggestions to help improve your post.
1. There is a general lack of in-text citations throughout this piece, even if a large chunk of information is coming from one source, it doesn’t hurt to remind the author every few sentences where the information is coming from.
2. Your first reference is listed as Anon however, the link takes me to the Science Direct general overview which is a collection of relevant journal articles. Be sure to go back to find the specific article this information was acquired from and credit the correct author! Additionally, the in-text citation is positioned in the middle of the page, not associated with any text or figure. Be sure to address this and ensure it is in the correct place.
3. Be sure to include a comma before et al. in your in-text citations as per the Anglia Ruskin citation guide.
4. In-text figure references should not be italicized.
5. Finally, be sure to include a comment explaining how this post is interdisciplinary and connects back to iSci course content!
Overall, this was a great read and I can’t wait to read the final copy!
Cheers,
Elaina
Omit the first suggestion, after rereading, does not apply!
Hi Elaina!
Thank you so much for the feedback, this was really helpful. I’ve omitted the first suggestion as you mentioned! I will go back and add the proper citation for the science direct source, for some reason I did not register that they are a collection of relevant journal articles. I will add the comma before the et al! I wasn’t sure about the in-text figure references, but I’ll un-italicize it. I added the comment a couple days back as I also remembered I forgot to add it initially! Thank you so much again for all of these suggestions they are very very helpful.
Cheers!
Julie
Hi Julie,
This was such an interesting post, and definitely something we can all relate to! I really liked it, but have a couple of suggestions to improve on your writing:
– In your third paragraph, you start three sentences in a row with “cortisol”. I would consider rewording at least on of them to avoid this!
– The reference in your second citation seems to be formatted wrong – adjust it so that it is centred with the rest of the figure caption.
– The last sentence in your first paragraph does not quite make sense. I think the “and why are they related?” seems a bit unnecessary. If you would like to keep it, then I would add an “and if so,” before it, since you have not confirmed that there is a relationship between the two yet.
Great job again, and I loved learning about the science behind wanting a sweet treat from Centro!
Maya
Hi Maya,
Thank you for this feedback! It was really helpful!
I did actually notice as I was rereading that cortisol begins every sentence in second paragraph, so I will definitely fix that! I adjusted the second citation as well. I agree I think I could definitely remove that part of the first paragraph and have it still make sense so I will do that.
Again thank you so much for your feedback, I also love a sweet treat from centro 🙂
Julie
Hey Julie!
This was a really great blog post! It was well-written and it’s clear you spent a lot of time researching. Here are a few things that you may be able to implement to improve it:
– Consider restructuring and modifying your opening sentence from “You’re working on a physics problem and you’ve tried it for what feels like hours and suddenly it hits you, “what’s in the pantry? If I had a sweet treat right now, surely, I’d figure this out.”” to something along the lines of “Imagine you’ve been working on a physics problem for what feels like hours. Suddenly it hits you, “what’s in the pantry? If I had a sweet treat right now, surely, I’d figure this out.””
– Consider rewording the last sentence of your second paragraph from “The brain releases a specific type of stress hormone called glucocorticoids which are steroid hormones that come from the adrenal cortex (Chourpiliadis and Aeddula, 2023), and that hormone is regulated by the HPA axis with a negative feedback loop as indicated in Figure 1 below.” to something along the lines of “The brain releases stress hormones called glucocorticoids, which are steroid hormones produced from the adrenal cortex (Chourpiliadis and Aeddula, 2023). These hormones are regulated by the HPA axis with a negative feedback loop as indicated in Figure 1 below.”
– For your figure caption, consider expanding on your opening sentence, making it something like “Figure 1: The negative feedback loop in the HPA axis regulating glucocorticoids.” and then continuing with the rest of your current figure caption.
Overall, this was a great blog post and I can’t wait to read the final version!
Happy editing,
Bronwen
Hi Bronwen,
Thank you so much for the detailed feedback I really appreciate it!
I will definitely restructure the first sentence, upon rereading it makes sense to switch it around so I will do that. The same goes for the last sentence of the second paragraph. For the figure caption I will try and go more in depth with respect to the the HPA axis and glucocorticoids.
Thank you again very much this was really helpful!
Cheers,
Thank you
Hi iSci!
I found the feedback loops during the physiology talk quite interesting and decided to take a more in depth look at the relationship between chemistry and biology in another one. Please feel free to comment and leave any criticism or improvements that can be made to the post! They are greatly needed.
Julie
Hi Julie, interesting blog post!
Here are some suggestions:
– In the last sentence of your third paragraph you state, “The feelings of stress evoke a different response from each individual, however, is there a relationship between stress and hunger, and why are they related?” I would split the 2 questions you ask at the end into two separate phrases, such as “The feelings of stress evoke a different response from each individual, however, is there a relationship between stress and hunger? If so, why are they related?” I feel that this would make your text flow better.
– When you state, “Although stress weasels its way into many aspects of students’ lives,” in the last paragraph, I would change the phrase “weasels its way into many aspects of students’ lives” to “accumulates in many aspects of students’ lives” or “presents itself in many aspects of students’ lives.”
– You talk about the HPA axis which stands for the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. In your text, you only refer to it as the HPA axis. Consider when first stating the HPA axis to write the full definition followed by the abbreviated definition. Like this: hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA). This way, it provides more clarity for the reader.
Overall, good work!
Hi Mara,
Thank you for the feedback!
I deleted the second half of the question initially but I think I’ll add that second question and break it up like you said. I will change the wording in the last paragraph as you’ve suggested. I totally didn’t register that I didn’t define it so I will definitely do that.
Thank you so much,
Julie