The Cortisol Connection: Why Stress Makes You Fat and Ruins Your Health - And What You Can Do About It (Paperback)

~ Ph.D. Shawn Talbott Ph.D. FACSM (Author), Ph.D. William Kraemer (Foreword)
Key Phrases: lifestyle program, cortisol overexposure, magnolia hark, United States, Relaxed Jack, Stressed Jess (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Stress is killing us," warns Talbott, and "humans are not zebras": unlike the rest of the animal kingdom, our fight-or-flight reactions to physical and emotional disturbances can lead to prolonged, chronic stress and elevated levels of cortisol. Over the long term, excessive amounts of this "primary stress hormone" can "kill your sex drive, shrink your brain, squelch your immune system, and generally make you feel terrible." While Talbott freely admits that nearly as many ways to cope with stress exist as events and situations that cause it, his recommended solution to alleviating tension and achieving balanced cortisol levels is the SENSE program. These five principles-Stress management, Exercise, Nutrition, Supplements and Evaluation-aren't necessarily groundbreaking, but they're undoubtedly sensible. Talbott is a nutritionist, and thus the book's coverage of vitamins, minerals and adaptogens (general anti-stress supplements) is especially comprehensive, and includes important recommendations for safety and dosage levels. With features including a "Stress Self-Test," daily food plans and a guide to additional stress management resources, the text is organized for both quick reference use as well as for readers, especially health care workers, interested in conducting a more detailed exploration.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

Cortisol. Who knew! Too little, or none.. and you have Addison's Disease and cannot handle stress without medication. Too much? Weight gain, IBS, joint pain, hair loss, and more.

This book not only outlines the problems caused by stress, which causes too much cortisol to be created by the body, but how to cope with it. Not only will you be informed about what and how much damage can be done to the body by too much stress/cortisol, but there are recommendations on how to change it. Nutrition, supplements to take or not to take? And of course a healthy diet and exercise are the among the answers.

This is not a gloom and doom book by any means. This is a book that explains a problem, and gives simple and often enjoyable approaches to controlling stress and the overproduction of this hormone. Read a trashy novel, soak in a hot tub, give yourself days off each week..hey, I can do that!

Often books that you think you should read to learn something you feel that you should know about are dry and dull and agonizing to get through. This one has bits of humor ( humans are not zebras!) and it presents information in such a clear and simple way that I was able to zip right through the pages, and make my way through it in 2 sittings.

Even though I have read it cover to cover, you can be sure that this is one that will spend a long time on my nightstand. I want it to be available for quick reference and reminders of what I should be doing and looking for. Not just a good and informative read, but by all means, a keeper! - Kathleen Wagner, LibraryThing Early Reviewer

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Product Details

• Paperback: 265 pages
• Publisher: Hunter House; 2nd edition (June 14, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 089793492X
• ISBN-13: 978-0897934923
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,114 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

155 of 169 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good stress info -- but all solutions are food supplements, February 19, 2004

By	David Spero "David Spero RN" (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Cortisol Connection: Why Stress Makes You Fat and Ruins Your Health - And What You Can Do About It (Paperback)

Stress is bad for you. We all knew that, but Shawn Talbott explains some of the biochemistry of stress in layman's terms. After reading The Cortisol Connection, you will know WHY chronic stress is bad and what it's likely to do to you.

Much of this has been covered better in other books about stress, such as Robert Sapolsky's Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. What's new about Cortisol Connection is the strong evidence that stress makes you gain weight. It puts on fat and makes your cells resistant to insulin, which puts you at risk for diabetes.

I'm very interested in this, because I'm currently researching a new book called The Politics of Diabetes. (I should also admit that Hunter House, publisher of Cortisol Connection, also published my first book, The Art of Getting Well: Maximizing Health When You Have a Chronic Illness.) I found Talbott's work helpful.

What I did not find, though, was many good ideas for what to DO about stress. He mentions stress reduction and exercise, but he seems to believe these are not realistic goals for most of us in our fast-paced society. Nearly all his recommendations are for food supplements - vitamins, herbs, minerals, amino acids - over 50 in all. And he really doesn't prioritize among them. I still have no idea where to start with these supplements, which ones have strong supporting evidence and which don't.

I also found his reference list really aggravating. I like to check references, both to learn more and to confirm that the author is playing straight with the facts. Talbott combines all the references for the first five chapters (six pages of references) into one long list, without numbers. So there's no way to tell which reference goes with which paragraph or claim in the book. The supplements actually have many more references than the information on stress does.

So if you are inclined to seek health through supplements, this may be the stress book for you. If you don't like investigating supplement claims and prowling around health food stores, you can still get some good information about stress here, but that's about it.

David Spero RN, author of The Art of Getting Well, Maximizing Health When You Have a Chronic Illness. www.davidsperoRN.com

42 of 43 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Hidden Danger!, December 31, 2005

By	surewords (Edison, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cortisol Connection: Why Stress Makes You Fat and Ruins Your Health - And What You Can Do About It (Paperback)

Overall, the book is fairly well written and easy to follow. The recommendations (dietary and other) would probably be helpful...if indeed your problems are due to elevated cortisol levels. However, on pgs. 78-79, the author makes the serious mistake of discouraging the use of hormone testing to determine actual cortisol levels. Instead, he recommends that you use his questionnaire (pg. xvi) as your sole guideline. Unfortunately, most of those questions deal with general stressors which nearly everyone experiences, along with other general health related questions. The point is, anyone could get a high score on this questionnaire, including those with high cortisol; low cortisol; fibromyalgia; chronic fatigue syndrome, and any number of other ailments. This creates a very serious problem, because if someone with low levels of cortisol (common in CFS, for instance) were to take some of the supplements that the author recommends, that person's already weak adrenal glands would be depleted even further, with potentially catastrophic consequences. So, my recommendation is to read this book with an open mind, but definitely get your cortisol levels tested (contrary to the author's opinion, salivary cortisol testing has proven quite reliable) before using any of the herbs or other supplements suggested.

34 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Some good information, but a lot of pseudoscience, May 12, 2005

By	James May (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cortisol Connection: Why Stress Makes You Fat and Ruins Your Health - And What You Can Do About It (Paperback)

While this book contains some good information about the effects of stress on the body and the body's biochemical response to stress, it mixes this up with a lot of pseudoscience: telling you that you can control your cortisol levels by taking vitamin supplements, which will then solve all your health problems and make you slim! As another reviewer has pointed out, Shawn Talbott sells a slimming aid called Corti-Slim, containing mostly vitamins, which seems to have no science behind it's claims.

If you are looking for a book based on science and fact, I would recommend "The Stress of Life" by Hans Selye, or "Mind-Body Health and Stress Tolerance" by David Jameson instead of this one.