Word: cortisol
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While some stress hormones can't stay elevated indefinitely, glucocorticoids can and do. Cortisol in particular can weaken the immune system, potentially making cancer and infectious diseases worse. Measuring the influence of stress, though, is tough. Some studies have shown no effect at all. Others offer intriguing clues. Dr. David Spiegel, director of Stanford's Psychosocial Treatment Laboratory, cites a study of psoriasis patients in which half practiced meditation and half didn't; the first group healed faster. Other studies show that patients who are part of a rich social network have lower cortisol levels than loners, that people...
...that doesn't entirely explain the discrepancy. Moreover, depressed diabetics are much more likely than those without depression to suffer complications including heart disease, nerve damage and blindness. Somehow depression makes the body less responsive to insulin, the hormone that processes blood sugar--plausibly through the action of cortisol, a hormone that can interfere with insulin sensitivity and that is often elevated in depressed patients...
...Cortisol may also make depressed patients more prone to osteoporosis. Studies by Dr. Philip Gold and Dr. Giovanni Cizza at the NIMH have shown that premenopausal women who are depressed have a much higher rate of bone loss than their nondepressed counterparts--and this disparity increases as women pass through menopause. Indeed, Cizza estimates that some 350,000 women get osteoporosis each year because of depression. Cortisol appears to interfere with the ability of the bones to absorb calcium and offset the natural calcium loss that comes with menopause and aging. Another class of chemicals, the pro-inflammatory cytokines, have...
What's going on? Several things at once, I suspect. At a hormonal level, studies have shown that meditation can counteract the fight-or-flight response that floods the body with the stress hormone cortisol and that also shuts down the parasympathetic system, which normally restores order after the alert is over. At a molecular level, meditation slows metabolism in red blood cells and suppresses the production of cytokines--proteins associated with the kind of heightened immune response often seen in stressed-out subjects such as students taking exams...
...adrenal glands also release extra cortisol and other glucocorticoids, which help the body convert sugars into energy...