Yale News Release
September 22, 2000
STRESS MAY CAUSE EXCESS ABDOMINAL FAT IN
OTHERWISE SLENDER WOMEN - Study Conducted at Yale Shows.
New Haven, Conn. - Non-overweight women who
are vulnerable to the effects of stress are more likely to have excess
abdominal fat and have higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol, a
study conducted at Yale suggests.
While past studies have examined cortisol
response in overweight women, this is the first study to show that lean
women with abdominal fat have exaggerated responses to cortisol.
Abdominal fat is related to worse health, including greater risk of
heart disease and diabetes.
"We also found that women with greater
abdominal fat had more negative moods and higher levels of life
stress." said Elissa S. Epel. Ph.d., lead investigator on the study
she conducted while at Yale's psychology department. "Greater
exposure to life stress or psychological vulnerability to stress may
explain their enhanced cortisol reactivty. In turn, their cortisol
exposure may have led them to accumulated greater abdominal fat."
Cortisol effects fat distribution by causing
fat to be stored centrally around the organs. Cortisol exposure
can increase visceral fat ( the fat surrounding the organs) in animals.
People with diseases associated with expreme exposure to cortisol, such
as severe recurrent depression and Cushing's disease also have excessive
amounts of visceral fat.
"Everyone is exposed to stress, but
some people may secrete more cortisol than others, and may secrete
cortisol each time they face the same stressor." Expel adds.
"We predicted that reacting to the same stressors consistently by
secreting cortisol would be related in greater visceral fat".
"These relationships likely apply to
men as well." Expel said. "However, excess weight in men
is almost always stored at the abdomen. On the contrary in
pre-menopausal women, excess weight is more often stored at the hips.
Therefore, for women it is possible that stress may influence body shape
more than for men."
Elissa Epel's research team at Yale included
Kelly D. Brownell, Ph.D., Jeannette R. Ickovics, Ph.D., Jennifer Bell,
and Grace Castellazzo. Other researchers, included Bruce McEwen,
Ph.D. of the Rockerfeller University; Teresa Seeman, Ph.D. of the
University of California, Los Angeles; and Karen Mathews, Ph.D. of the
uNiversity of Pittsburgh.
The study was funded by the MaCarthur
Foundation Research Network on Socioeconomic Status and Health.
