Welcome to the Ask a Nutritionist podcast, brought to you by Nutritional Weight and Wellness.

We are thrilled to have you join us today as we discuss the connection between what you eat and how you feel and share practical real-life solutions for healthier living through balanced nutrition.

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Hello and welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition's midweek segment called Ask a Nutrition. Now let's get started. Hello and welcome to Dishing Up Nutrition's

midweek segment called Ask a Nutritionist. I am Brittany Vincent and registered and licensed

dietitian. On today's show brought to you by nutritional weight and wellness, I will be

answering a nutrition question we have received from one of our Dishing Up Nutrition listeners.

Today's question is, what role does cortisol play in our bodies and how does it relate to weight?

I think this is a really good question because we have been in the media hearing a lot more about cortisol and its functions in the body,

but it's a little confusing. It takes us back to science class. So let me first explain what cortisol is.

It is a hormone produced and released by our adrenal glands. And our adrenal glands are triangle-shaped

glands that sit atop of our kidneys. Our adrenal glands are part of our endocrine system.

We produce and need to produce cortisol on a daily basis, but we do have an optimal biarrhythm.

It should be highest in the morning. It

increases with light. That's part of what gets us up and going for the day. And then it should

slowly reduce and be at its lowest point at night. It does have an inverse relationship with

melatonin, which is our sleep-wake psycho-hormone.

And some roles cortisol plays, it regulates your body's stress response.

So cortisol will increase during stress.

Cortisol helps to regulate blood sugar, blood pressure, metabolism reduces inflammation. But when your

cortisol is too high or too low, it definitely has negative impacts systemically in your body.

So moving on to the relationship with weight, overproduction of cortisol can definitely cause weight gain,

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