Social Stress Makes You Fat

All fat is not created equal, and belly fat is one of the least equal and the most harmful kinds of fat. Now comes a study conducted at Wake Forest School of Medicine suggesting that social stress could cause the body to deposit more fat in
the abdominal cavity, speeding the harmful buildup of plaque in blood
vessels. A Wake Forest press release reports that researchers at the school fed female monkeys a Western-style
diet containing fat and cholesterol. The monkeys were housed in groups
so they would naturally establish a pecking order from dominant to
subordinate. The researchers found that socially stressed subordinate monkeys developed more fat in the viscera, or abdominal cavity.What's up w' that? The researchers found  that the stress of
social subordination results in the release of stress hormones that
promote the deposition of fat in the viscera. The press release reports that visceral fat, in turn,
promotes coronary artery atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque in the
blood vessels that leads to heart disease, the leading cause of death
in the world today.
Read more from Wake Forest School of Medicine.