Stress and weight..................................................................................................

Relora™ is particularly exciting, as not only does it help promote relaxation but it also encourages weight loss by boosting fat metabolism.

Stress not only increases one's appetite, particularly for high-fat, high-carbohydrate foods but it also effects how your body stores and metabolises fat. During stressful periods the body secretes a number of different hormones one of which is Cortisol.

Cortisol is responsible for stimulating the appetite and encouraging the body to turn food into glucose.
Until recently there were few known predictors of stress-induced eating. While most adults who have sugar/fat cravings under stress are aware of their out-of-control appetite, scientists have had difficulty in demonstrating actual cause and effect.
Dr. Elissa Epel and colleagues at University of California, San Francisco have clearly shown that individuals who are high reactors to the stress hormone called cortisol, consume more calories and more sweet foods under stress.
Their recent study also demonstrated that greater food consumption occurred in high cortisol reactors when they were in a negative mood.

In Stone-Age times stress was almost always physical- it meant either fighting or running for your life.Today stress is more likely to be caused by sitting in a traffic jam, screaming kids or a bad day at the office- unfortunately the bodies response is the same but we don't have the physical reaction and demand less of our stored food at the same our appetite is also stimulated, the result weight gain.

The plant extracts in Relora have been demonstrated to lower Cortisol levels and therefore stop stimulating appetite and the production of glucose.After two-weeks of using Relora participants were found to have a 37% reduction in Cortisol levels.
A two-week regimen of Relora caused a significant (P = 0.003) increase in salivary DHEA (227%) and a significant (P = 0.01) decrease in morning salivary cortisol levels (37%).

Elevated cortisol can:

• Cause you to crave carbohydrates excessively especially in the evening
• Make you feel fatigued and exhausted
• Increase cholesterol and triglyceride production ·
• Decrease serotonin levels in your brain leaving you feeling emotionally flat and even feeling depressed.
• Increase the demands for nutrients like B vitamins Calcium and magnesium
• Increase inflammation markers in your immune system which can weaken your body's defenses.
• Lead to weight gain by training your body to become more efficient at storing fat.
• Makes your body more insulin resistant so that the carbs and sugar that you do eat are more likely to be stored as fat.

The bottom line is when you are under chronic stress your body is in a vicious cycle. The more stress you are under the more you crave carbohydrates and sugar, the more that you feel out of control of your appetite, and the more that you end up gaining weight.

It's no co-incidence that the reported increase in stress we all face has been mirrored by the increase in the number of people who are overweight. It's estimated that nearly half the U.K. population is either overweight or obese (Health Which? Survey published 6th June 2000 ).
The problem is even more severe in other countries in America an amazing 1 in 3 people are clinically obese- Journal of the American Medical Journal 9/10/2002

Given that stress causes weight problems Relora™ and its ability to promote relaxation as well as reducing Cortisol levels are particularly welcome.