The cortisol issue has to do with the fact that cortisol is used by the body to trigger the well known "fight or flight" response. Here's a quote from an article written by a doctor who gives a very good explanation of how this adversely affects most organs in the body. It answers a lot of questions about why many of us feel the way we do, during an MC reaction.
You'll get more out of that quote, of course, if you read the entire article:Cortisol adversely affects the intestinal tract in two ways. First, high cortisol levels shift the nervous system away from digestive function, since you won’t be eating and running or fighting at the same time (unless you are Mike Tyson eating your opponent’s ears). Secondly, cortisol impairs the body’s ability to repair itself because it doesn’t want to spend the energy on this activity when it needs it for the stress response. The end result is a progressive thinning and wearing away of the intestinal lining. So we have a double whammy: an inflamed intestinal tract lining from a poor diet and too many anti-inflammatory drugs, which is then aggravated by having your body produce still more cortisol in response to the intestinal inflammation.
http://www.richardweinsteindc.com/disor ... %20Colitis:
I find his remarks about how the thyroid is affected, to be particularly interesting, since so many of us tend to have hypothyroidism. This is a partial quote of that section:
The red emphasis is mine, of course.High cortisol levels can both alter pituitary function and prevent the conversion of thyroid hormone, so thyroid function can be compromised on either end of the process.
Far more overlooked is the fact that even if the thyroid hormone makes it to the liver intact to be further processed and released as a useable hormone, the liver ships 20% of the thyroid hormone to the intestinal tract in a deactivated form, where it becomes reactivated. So if the intestinal tract is inflamed, dysfunctional, and unable to reactivate the thyroid hormone, you will be 20% low on thyroid hormone (a condition known as hypothyroidism).
The symptoms of low thyroid function are fatigue, feeling cold especially in the hands and feet, and depression. By not accounting for the 20% loss of thyroid hormone due to intestinal dysfunction, millions of women are being told by their doctors that their thyroid hormone levels are fine even though they have these symptoms, because their blood tests only show the level of thyroid hormone before it gets to the liver to be processed.
Presumably, by suppressing high cortisol levels, the body, (and most organs), will be shifted out of "fight or flight" mode, and into normal mode, (which restores the capacity for healing). I'm not sure that everyone with MC automatically has high cortisol levels, but certainly, some of us do.
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