Visualization for Weight Loss -The Gabriel Method

Appendix: The Chemistry of the FAT Programs

an unregulated cortisol cascade. Examples of stress responses that cause an unregulated cortisol cascade include: the “chronic stress-response network,” where the amygdale produces ACTH, such as with Dallman’s rats 35 ; an overly active pituitary, as in Cushing’s Syndrome; and the over expression of the 11-BHSD-1 enzyme. All of these stress responses have been shown to cause obesity. Significantly, studies on starvation reveal a similar kind of stress response. While cortisol levels are elevated from food deprivation, CRH levels are reduced 36,37 or unchanged. 38 Cortisol levels are evidently being elevated through some mechanism other than CRH initiating the HPA axis. In addition, levels of CRH-BP, a hormone that inhibits the action of CRH, have also been shown to be elevated in both starvation and obesity in rats. 39 So, in both obesity and starvation, the stress response is not the “normal” HPA axis/fight or flight response. Obesity is often characterized by an “abnormal” functioning of the HPA axis. But it is possible that it is not really abnormal, just a different stress response—a starvation or “FAT” stress response, not a fight or flight response. Mental and Emotional Stress People generally assume that our bodies’ catch-all response to mental and emotional stresses is the fight or flight response, the rationale being that the body interprets all mental and emo- tional threats to be some type of predator. But this assumption seems overly simplistic and is completely unfounded, as well as unprovable. Our bodies, no doubt, interpret all mental and emotional stress as some type of physical threat. But who is to say what type of physical threat? Our bodies could be interpreting the stress to be a predator, starvation, cold weather, or any other type of physical threat. Starvation and cold weather have their own unique stress responses. They are stresses, but they are clearly not fight or

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