VitaLife Adaptogens help eliminate stress and risk of disease

VitaLife adaptogens increase energy and provide stress relief by working through the adrenal glands to control the excess production of the killer stress hormone, cortisol, and has helped millions around the world “adapt” to various stress conditions and eliminate the damaging effects of stress that can increase the risks of sleeplessness, anxiety, depression, fatigue, immune system disorders, obesity, diabetes, ulcers, heart disease and cancer. 

Stress increases the risk of sleeplessness

One of the first casualties of stress is a disruption of our sleep patterns. After an 8-12 hour work day, and four hours of meals, family time and catching up on our daily events, we fall asleep and our mind begins to race. Stress leads to sleeplessness which leads to a lessened ability to handle stress which leads to more sleeplessness and so the vicious cycle continues.

The Better Sleep Council reported in a 2004 study that 65% of Americans said they are loosing sleep due to stress. In the same study, 32% of Americans said they are loosing sleep at least one night per week and 16% of Americans experience stress-induced insomnia.

Although the link between a stressful day and a restless night is well known, in a study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, scientists continued to search for the exact ways that stress affects sleep. A new study suggests that stress may disrupt the nervous system's natural rhythms during various sleep stages.

When you are constantly reacting to stressful situations without making adjustments to counter the effects, you will feel stress which can threaten your health and well-being. Too much stress can cause increase levels of cortisol and result in relatively minor illnesses like insomnia, backaches, or headaches, and as noted, can contribute to potentially life-threatening diseases like high blood pressure and heart disease.

Stress increases the risk of anxiety

Anxiety is a psychological or biological response to stress which can persist in the absence of such stress. Feelings of anxiety involve discomforting apprehension or concern, which may include symptoms such as cognitive difficulties, hypersensitivity, dizziness, muscular weakness, breathing difficulties, irregular heart beat, sweating, and sensations of fear. Typically, anxiety is a natural and healthy response to life experiences. However, exaggerated or chronic anxiety often indicates an anxiety disorder. Anxiety can be produced by external or internal stress. Severe forms of anxiety attacks are usually called panic attacks.

Anxiety disorders are serious medical illnesses that affect an estimated 40 million American adults. These disorders fill people's lives with overwhelming anxiety and fear. Unlike the relatively mild, brief anxiety caused by a stressful event such as a business presentation or a first date, anxiety disorders are chronic, relentless, and can grow progressively worse if not treated.

Anxiety disorders are characterized by an excessive degree of anxiety or prolonged duration of anxiety symptoms. There are many possible causes for anxiety disorders which may be psychological, psychiatric, neurological and/or hormonal in nature. Anxiety disorders include Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Phobias and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Anxiety disorders can sometimes aggravate medical disorders and should be discussed with a medical doctor.

Stress increases the risk of depression and phobias

The symptoms of depression are typically worse in the morning. That is when your body's cortisol level is the highest and accounts for at least part of what people feel when they experience anxiety and depression. As stated, Cortisol is the stress hormone your body produces when you are under stress and can stimulate anxiety and depression.

Depression often accompanies anxiety disorders. Symptoms of depression include feelings of sadness, hopelessness, changes in appetite or sleep, low energy, and difficulty concentrating. Most people with depression can be effectively treated with antidepressant medications, certain types of psychotherapy, and increasingly with natural remedies.

A University of Iowa study showed a strong relationship between hyperactive levels of cortisol associated with primary depression, depression secondary to panic disorder, as well as agoraphobia in panic disorder patients.

Social phobia, also called social anxiety disorder, involves overwhelming anxiety and excessive self-consciousness in everyday social situations. Social phobia affects about 15 million adult Americans. Women and men are equally likely to develop social phobia. Social phobia often co-occurs with other anxiety disorders or depression. Substance abuse or dependence may develop in individuals who attempt to "self-medicate" their social phobia by drinking or using drugs.

Stress increases the risk of panic disorders

The symptoms of a panic attack include a pounding heart, sweat, weakness, faint, or dizziness. Your hands may tingle or feel numb, and you might feel flushed or chilled. You may have nausea, chest pain or smothering sensations, a sense of unreality, or fear of impending doom or loss of control. People who experience panic attacks may genuinely believe they are having a heart attack or losing their mind, or on the verge of death.

A Massstricht University ( Netherlands ) study reported that panic attacks in normally healthy individuals, showed no increase in the level of cortisol after a panic attack, however, those patients who had been previously diagnosed with panic disorders, men in particular, showed higher levels of cortisol after a laboratory induced panic attack.

Panic disorder affects about 6 million adult Americans and is twice as common in women as in men. Although the exact cause of panic disorder is not fully understood, studies have shown that a combination of factors, including biological and environmental, may be involved. These factors include family history, abnormalities in the brain, substance abuse and major life stress. Stressful events and major life transitions, such as the death of a loved one, can trigger a panic disorder.

Physical and psychological symptoms of panic attacks can include racing heartbeat, chest pains, terror, fear of dying, dizziness or lightheadedness, stomach in knots, neck, shoulder, and back tension, choking sensation, worry of having a terminal illness, fear of having a heart attack, headaches, feeling of terror for no apparent reason, sweating, nausea, flushes or chills, difficulty breathing, tingling or numbness, feelings of unreality, fear of losing control.

Stress increases the risk of cardiovascular disease

More and more evidence suggests a relationship between the risk of cardiovascular disease and environmental and psychosocial factors. These factors include job strain, social isolation and personality traits. While scientists do not yet know if stress acts as an "independent" risk factor for cardiovascular disease, it is clear that acute and chronic stress may affect other risk factors and behaviors, such as high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, smoking, physical inactivity and overeating – which have been shown to associate with coronary heart disease. High blood pressure and high cholesterol levels are known to have a direct effect on the heart.

In addition to the more than 3,000 studies conducted by the International scientific community on adaptogens as a natural remedy for the excess production of cortisol, research continues to further understand what happens when the body releases adrenaline and cortisol, and how these chemicals can lead to fatty deposits building up in the arteries; and how it can make blood more likely to clot and increase blood pressure.

So stress is a mentally or emotionally disruptive or upsetting condition occurring in response to adverse external influences and can affect physical health; usually characterized by increased heart rate, a rise in blood pressure, muscular tension, irritability, and depression.

Stress increases the risk and treatment of cancer

There is sufficient evidence from the International scientific community and studies performed in Asia and Europe, that adaptogens in oncology are especially effective for cancer prevention and in those cases when tumor mass is small, i.e. at early stages of cancer development, and also after a primary tumor has been removed in order to prevent recurrence and spread of cancer. Adaptogens were also highly effective in stimulating recovery, tissue preparation and regeneration after radiation therapy, chemotherapy, or surgical removal of the tumor.

The combination adaptogens and chemotherapy was reported to be more effective than chemotherapy alone, both in the short and long-term, in breast cancer patients, while the combination of adaptogens and radiotherapy was superior to radiotherapy alone in lower lip cancer patients. The addition of adaptogens to the regimen for gastric cancer patients improved the short-term results of the treatment. Scientists have reported the improved results of treating Hodgkin's disease in children when using adaptogens modifying the immune response in cancer patients.

Scientists, for instance, know that many types of stress activate the body's endocrine (hormone) system, which in turn can cause changes in the immune system, the body's defense against infection and disease (including cancer). However, the immune system is a highly specialized network whose activity is affected not only by stress but by a number of other factors.

While it has not been shown that stress-induced changes in the immune system directly cause cancer, there might be, in theory, a link between stress and cancer because some laboratory studies show that stress does upset the immune system - and that an impaired immune system might increase the risk of cancer.

Stress could also have indirect effects because people who are under stress may do things that increase their risk of cancer – such as smoking and drinking too much alcohol. Good health habits that might prevent cancer, like eating plenty of fruit and vegetables and getting enough exercise, may also fall by the wayside if you are stressed.

Stress increases the risk of obesity and many other diseases

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that sixty-one percent of adults in the U.S. are overweight. A breakdown of that figure shows that thirty-five percent are slightly or moderately overweight, and that twenty-six percent are obese or super obese. In addition, about thirteen percent of U.S. children are overweight or obese.

Research suggests that there is a biological link between stress and the drive to eat. Comfort foods -- high in sugar, fat, and calories -- seem to calm the body's response to chronic stress. In addition, hormones, such as cortisol, produced when one is under stress encourage the formation of fat cells. In developed countries, life tends to be competitive, fast paced, demanding, and stressful. There may be a link between so-called modern life and increasing rates of overeating, overweight, and obesity.

Stress and obesity go together. In essence, stress itself is not negative but its outcomes are. Overweight-ness and obesity are related to stress in more than one ways. Stress may leads lack of control of over eating. Stress is associated with bad nutritional habits like eating much more rapidly than normal or eating until feeling uncomfortably full.

Being overweight increases the risk for a number of health problems. Obese patients are about twice as likely to die from cardiovascular disease (such as heart disease and stroke). Overweight people are at higher risk for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.

The American Obesity Association reports that persons with obesity are at risk of developing one or more serious medical conditions, which can cause poor health and premature death.   Obesity is associated with more than a staggering 30 medical conditions, and scientific evidence has established a strong relationship with at least 15 of those conditions. Preliminary data also show the impact of obesity on various other conditions. Weight loss of about 10% of body weight, for persons with overweight or obesity, can improve some obesity-related medical conditions including diabetes and hypertension.

Obesity is associated with an increased risk of, osteoarthritis of the hand, hip, back and knee, rheumatoid arthritis in both men and women, breast cancer in post menopausal women, cancer of the esophagus, colorectal cancer, cardiovascular disease due to effect on blood lipid levels, death from heart disease, carpal tunnel syndrome, daytime sleepiness and sleep apnea, deep vein thrombosis, type 2 diabetes, gallbladder disease, gallstones, gout, heat disorders, hypertension, impaired immune system response, impaired respiratory functions, incidence of wound infection, infertility, liver diseases, low back pain, menstrual disturbances, joint related pain, sleep apnea, stroke, surgical complications, prostate cancer, hernia, skin disorders, and endocrine (hormonal) abnormalities.

 

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
 VitaLife is an all natural remedy that can help eliminate the damaging effects of
stress and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.