Research paper
Tomiyama AJ, Dallman MF, Epel ES. Comfort food is comforting to those most stressed: evidence of the chronic stress response network in high stress women. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2011 Nov;36(10):1513-1519. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.04.005
Why we cite it
The authors call it ”the first direct demonstration of the potential existence of the chronic stress response network, as we understand it in rats, in humans” — their claim. The model is Dallman’s (2003), set out from rat work. Tests whether the animal-model pathway — chronic stress → comfort food consumption → abdominal fat accumulation → dampened HPA axis — operates similarly in humans. In 59 premenopausal women, the high-stress group reported more emotional eating, carried more abdominal fat, and had a blunted cortisol response to a lab stressor, which the authors read as support for the animal model’s loop.
DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2011.04.005 · PubMed 21906885 · Publisher
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