Handle stress with diet and supplements

Better Nutrition (1989-90), July, 1989 by Deborah Seymour Taylor

Handle Stress With Diet and Supplements

If you're burning the candle at both ends, remember that the right nutrients can help you keep stress under control.

In the early 1930s, Hans Selye, M.D., Director of the Institute of Experimental Medicine and Surgery at the University of Montreal, arrived at a revolutionary new concept: stress can cause disease. He hypothesized that each one of us is born with a certain amount of vitality which is gradually used up by stress. True aging, he explained, is not determined by time, but by the amount of drain on this vital energy.

Today, medical research has confirmed that stress from poor nutrition, drugs, chemicals, infections, surgery, noise, excessive fatigue or psychological trauma is a major contributor to heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and cancer.

Unfortunately stress is hard to avoid. "We have an appetite for it," said Michael Rosenbaum, M.D. author of Super Fitness Beyond Vitamins. "If it's not appeased, we starve. Without it, there can be no growth and repair. We need it to stimulate body and mind. And even if you somehow manage to isolate yourself completely from stress, that isolation itself will be stressful."

The trick is to learn to minimize the effects of stress. Recent research has confirmed that getting enough of certain nutrients is one of the best means of doing so. Under conditions of stress, the requirement for nutrients skyrockets. "Stress of all kinds creates toxic chemical by-products such as free radicals, which damage living tissue," said Dr. Rosenbaum. "The key to resisting stress lies in neutralizing free radicals and preventing oxidation. Free radicals are the biochemical vandals that scientists believe do most of the actual dirty work of stress. They damage the blood vessels, oxidize fatty acids, cross-link molecules, damage our DNA and RNA, aid in the deterioration of the immune system, contribute to the decline in our neurotransmitters and either help trigger or actually execute the aging wrought by the mysterious `aging clock.'"

A free radical is a molecule or atom which has an unpaired electron in its outer electron shell, making it extremely reactive. According to Gary Price Todd, M.D., "A free radical might be thought of as an accident looking for a place to happen .. It will react with any available molecule. If that molecule plays a key role as an enzyme, structural molecule, or genetic material, then the damage can be severe."

Free radical damage can be controlled with certain vitamins and minerals known as antioxidants. According to Dr. Rosenbaum, "An antioxidant molecule serves its function by sacrificing itself for oxidation, thus protecting vulnerable tissues. Antioxidants protect the cellular membranes from free radical damage which destroys the membranes and damages cells.

Vitamin C has a direct relationship to the health of your glands -- in particular, the adrenal glands which produce adrenaline and noradrenaline, neurotransmitters that help us to cope with stress. When under stress, whether psychological or physical, a great deal of vitamin C is used to produce these hormones. Thus a lack can cause a vicious cycle: if you are low on it, whether due to stress or other factors, the adrenal glands cannot produce enough of the stress-coping hormones and the body experiences further stress.

Like vitamin C, the B-complex vitamins, nicknamed the anti-stress vitamins, help the body resist stress through their influence on the adrenal glands. In response to stress, adrenal hormones -- in particular, cortisone -- stimulate energy production by increasing blood sugar levels. With prolonged stress, the adrenal glands become exhausted and less able to secrete cortisone. Exhausted adrenal glands are a primary cause of immune system destruction and consequent disease.

In a series of experiments conducted by Elaine Ralli, M.D., male adult volunteers were subjected to stress by immersion in cold water for long periods of time. Following six weeks of oral doses of vitamin pantothenic acid the volunteers, once again subjected to the freezing water, demonstrated far fewer signs of stress than the first time. Dr. Ralli concluded that pantothenic acid, in varying dosages depending on the severity of the stressors, apparently increases the capacity of the body's tissues to withstand stress.

Two other members of the B-complex family, thiamine (B1) and pyridoxine (B6), help alleviate stress by keeping the nervous system strong. Thiamine supplies energy for the nervous system and brain by converting the carbohydrates into glucose. Deficiencies of thiamine cause a 50 to 60 per cent reduction in glucose utilization by nervous tissue. The result: nerve cells become enlarged, leading to a loss of communication between neighboring nerve cells. In addition, a thiamine deficiency results in the degeneration of the insulating and protecting sheath called myelin that covers nerve fibers. The symptoms of a thiamine deficiency include irritability, forgetfulness and apathy.