OK, it's squirrels, not people, but the research has implications for humans.
Canadian researchers examined the way stress affects red squirrels and concludes that mother squirrels exposed to high levels of stress had bigger babies… even though the others didn’t eat any more calories.
In a related study, squirrels were fed cortisol-laced food and the results were the same.
In both cases, if there were elevated levels of cortisol in the mother’s body, the baby grew bigger and faster.
So here’s the question – could this fact explain the meteoric rise in obesity around the world? It’s theory that’s gaining in popularity – even if the jump from squirrels to humans is… well… quite a leap.
Still, this is just another link, perhaps coincidental, in understanding the relationship between cortisol and stress… stress and your health.
It couldn’t hurt expectant mothers to relax a bit more, could it? And maybe, just maybe, their children would be less likely to become obese?
It’s worth a try.
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