# Stress

Category: Conditions

Also known as: chronic stress, physiological stress, stress response

Stress is fundamentally a state of interference with energy production, a definition that unifies its diverse manifestations from emotional turmoil to metabolic dysfunction. Hans Selye, the physiologist who pioneered stress research, demonstrated that stress is an inherent…

11 passages · 2 authors · 2014–2026 · Most-cited: [Danny Roddy](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/danny-roddy/index.md)

Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/stress

## Synthesis

**Stress** is fundamentally a state of *interference with energy production*, a definition that unifies its diverse manifestations from emotional turmoil to metabolic dysfunction. [Source 5] Hans Selye, the physiologist who pioneered stress research, demonstrated that stress is an inherent feature of life, but becomes pathological when an organism's metabolic energy supply is taxed too heavily, causing an adaptive response that eventually leads to impaired functioning and death. [Source 4] Danny Roddy has emphasized that even the anticipation of a loved one returning home constitutes stress, and that complete freedom from stress is death itself. [Source 2, 9] The critical distinction lies between acute, adaptive stress and the **chronic low-grade stress** that characterizes modern life, which the body is not evolutionarily equipped to handle for extended periods. [Source 8]

The physiological stress response is orchestrated by counter-regulatory hormones, primarily **cortisol** and **adrenaline**, which are released to supply cells with emergency fuel during a perceived threat. [Source 8] Cortisol's primary role is to prevent blood glucose from falling too low, and it achieves this by catabolically breaking down tissues—muscle, skin, brain, and liver—into amino acids, while adrenaline liberates free fatty acids from fat stores. [Source 3, 8] This mechanism is perfectly suited for brief, intense threats, such as escaping a predator, where the stress response resolves within minutes. [Source 8] However, in the modern environment, stressors like financial instability, work pressure, and social isolation are persistent, leading to a state where **baseline cortisol is constantly elevated**. [Source 3, 4] Georgi Dinkov notes that a significant portion of the population are now "non-responders" to the dexamethasone suppression test, a clinical indicator of depression where the body fails to downregulate cortisol production even when a synthetic glucocorticoid is administered, signifying a maladaptive chronic stress state. [Source 3]

At the cellular level, metabolic stress is defined by a *supply and demand mismatch* where cells are deprived of oxygen and sugar, the fundamental anti-stress factors. [Source 9, 10] Suppressed thyroid function is a central driver of this state because it limits a cell's ability to produce carbon dioxide, which via the **Bohr effect** is essential for dissociating oxygen from hemoglobin. [Source 1] Without adequate thyroid function and CO2 production, a person can be in a state of physiological stress even without an external stimulus, essentially hyperventilating at rest. [Source 1] This interference with oxidative metabolism forces cells to rely on inefficient glycolysis, producing lactic acid and triggering the release of inflammatory cytokines and stress hormones. [Source 9] Roddy has argued that ketogenic diets mimic this stress metabolism by voluntarily increasing the rate of lipolysis, a hallmark of aging and disease, which produces less carbon dioxide than glucose oxidation and slows the entire organism's renewal. [Source 10]

Chronic stress is increasingly recognized not merely as a nuisance but as a direct carcinogenic driver. Dinkov cites research showing that chronic stress directly drives liver cancer by shifting the metabolism of the amino acid L-tryptophan toward pathways that produce immunosuppressive and inflammatory metabolites. [Source 6] The systemic effects are amplified by the interplay of stress substances; elevated cortisol is closely related to increases in **estrogen** and **serotonin**, which are associated with aggressive behavior and have been linked to population-level violence. [Source 4] Children living in poverty exhibit higher cortisol levels, increasing their susceptibility to heart disease and cancer later in life, a phenomenon described as a short-term adaptive response that comes at a significant cost to long-term health and longevity. [Source 4] Dinkov has stated that the price of chronic stress is infinite and cannot be compensated for by any amount of money or career success, though interventions like aspirin can partially block its effects by inhibiting the production of inflammatory mediators from polyunsaturated fatty acids. [Source 7]

Practical assessment of stress involves monitoring both pulse and temperature in tandem, as a high pulse coupled with low extremity temperature indicates a state driven by adrenaline rather than healthy thyroid function. [Source 5] The overarching framework is a *metabolic tug-of-war* between energy production and stress substances, where maintaining thyroid function and stable blood sugar helps resist the destructive effects of cortisol, adrenaline, and the hormonal cascades they trigger. [Source 11] Even seemingly minor dietary imbalances, such as a high phosphate-to-calcium ratio, can activate the parathyroid glands and constitute a form of stress, illustrating how the stress response is a complex biochemical web chronically activated by features of modern life. [Source 11]

## People also ask

### How does chronic stress differ from acute stress physiologically?

Acute stress involves a brief, adaptive release of cortisol and adrenaline to provide emergency fuel, resolving quickly. Chronic stress features constantly elevated baseline cortisol from persistent modern stressors, leading to tissue breakdown and maladaptive states where the body fails to downregulate the stress response.

### Why is thyroid function considered central to resisting stress?

Peat's framework describes suppressed thyroid function as a central driver of metabolic stress because it limits carbon dioxide production. Without adequate CO2, the Bohr effect is impaired, reducing oxygen delivery to cells and forcing a reliance on inefficient glycolysis even at rest.

### What is the link between chronic stress and cancer development?

The corpus cites research relayed by Dinkov showing that chronic stress directly drives liver cancer by shifting L-tryptophan metabolism toward pathways that produce immunosuppressive and inflammatory metabolites, rather than being merely a nuisance.

## Related concepts

- [Bioenergetics](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/bioenergetics/index.md)
- [Alzheimer's and Dementia](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/alzheimer-s-and-dementia/index.md)
- [Arachidonic Acid](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/arachidonic-acid/index.md)
- [Aspirin](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/aspirin/index.md)
- [Bohr effect](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/bohr-effect/index.md)
- [Calcium](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/calcium/index.md)

## Cited passages

Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above.

### Source 1 — Speaking With Guest Danny Roddy on Baldness and Finasteride | Fireside Chat 195

Danny Roddy · Interview · Oct 19, 2021

> **Brian:** We're talking about the COVID-oriented government stuff, right? The lockdowns, the mandates. I don't want to get your channel banned on.
>
> **Brian:** We're good. Ivermectin. I said it. No, no, I'm not worried about that. But but essentially, yeah, it's been a stressful couple of like couple of years. Lots of things, you know, our future is in question and it's making people, you know, pretty crazy and demoralized. And all of that contributes probably more than just the food. Right.
>
> **Danny Roddy:** Yeah, and stress can be like a physiological thing. So it's like you and I get an argument, oh, I'm stressed out. But if you have suppressed thyroid function, you're limiting your oxygen supply. And so, George, you probably talked about it, but one of the reasons your thyroid is so important is because it stimulates cells to produce carbon dioxide. And then via the Bohr effect, carbon dioxide dissociates oxygen from hemoglobin and allows cells to absorb it. And so if your thyroid is low, your CO2 is low, and you're like hyperventilating, just sitting down doing nothing. So your body is in a state of stress while you could have no stimulus at all. You know what I mean? And so that's what we're kind of talking about, like a real finite definition of what stress is. And then that gets worse over a person's lifetime, leading to every problem you can possibly think of. And the guy that figured that out was named Hans Selye. He wrote a book called Stress Without Distress. The story of adaptation syndrome. Anyways, he's not a crank. He's like a he's like the guy that figured out how the stress response works. He's like a famous physiologist. But anyways, people don't really reference him that much these days.

### Source 2 — Danny Roddy – Sugar Feeds Our Cells, PUFAs Are Poison, Hormones & A Bioenergetic Concept of Health!

Danny Roddy · Interview · Aug 11, 2025

> **Justin:** Yeah, totally. No, it's a good thing. And stress, I guess, I wanted to talk about PUFAs, and we'll do that, but just really quickly, stress, it seems like if it's done and managed correctly, it's a good thing, right? Like, constant chronic stress from things that you don't think are stressful, I mean, that's obviously going to put a tremendous burden on the body, but, like, I guess you could say working out would be a stress to your muscles, right? Yeah.
>
> **Danny Roddy:** Yeah, there's a book by Hans Selye called Stress Without Distress, and he very carefully points out that even anticipating a loved one getting home is a form of stress. And the important thing would be trying to mitigate the pathological types of stress and also that complete freedom from stress is death. And so, I don't know, it's getting kind of granular. But I think when a cell, its usage of oxygen and sugar is interfered with, that might be a... type of explanation for metabolic stress. And so that's what we're really talking about here. But even like a breathless exercise, going to the gym and doing kind of what was the CrossFit type of exercise where you're not breathing, like that is limiting the availability of oxygen. And that's going to be similar to decreasing your thyroid function. That's what's allowing cells to create carbon dioxide and use oxygen via the Bohr effect. And so, again, life and aging is just this sharp decline in the ability to use oxygen. And so just running around the block really intensely and not breathing is kind of like mimicking that process of aging.

### Source 3 — Does SUGAR CAUSE RESISTANCE?  Does it MAKE YOU FAT? Interview with GEORGI DINKOV

Georgi Dinkov · Interview · Mar 9, 2023 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBluwv-WrVA

> **Georgi Dinkov:** uh through through exhaustion eventually collapse and die simply because in nature no animal is really you know meant to like stay in a stress state let's say 20 minutes it's either one minute you survive or you die and that's about it then it's over right um and then the stress media is go down not so much in our modern lifestyle we are constantly under stress right a cortisol is constantly the baseline cortisol is constantly elevated uh to the point where a good portion of the population are so-called non-responders of the dexamethasone suppression test and really this test is actually one of the tests for depression um when you go to a doctor's office and they you know the doctor checks your cortisol let's say it's slightly elevated The doctor will probably ask to repeat that test every couple of weeks. If it still comes back elevated, the doctor may send you to get the so-called dexamethasone suppression test. And what this really means is they inject you with a synthetic equivalent of cortisol called dexamethasone. And the proper response is when the body senses that you have an exogenous... uh glucocorticoid administered to you it's supposed to lower your level of cortisol right because the body says i have something that works just as my cortisol in fact is very very strong so i better not keep producing this cortisol because i'm going to destroy this organism now uh when you're in chronic stress in other words when you already started to adapt to the stress um basically when they inject you with a mech with the dexamethasone your your levels of cortisol will not go down It's one of the actual tests of depression. 80% of people with clinical depression are non-responders to the test. In other words, their cortisol levels stay elevated, which means there's some kind of adaptation that occurred.

### Source 4 — On Politics, Environment, and Human Potential

Danny Roddy · Article · Mar 13, 2018

> Selye believed that stress was an inherent feature of life, but became grating when an organism's metabolic energy supply was taxed too heavily, causing an adaptive response that eventually led to impaired functioning and ultimately to death.
>
> [references]
>
> The businessman who is under pressure to make a deadline, the student who wants to pass the test, and the husband who hopelessly watches his wife slowly dying from cancer, all suffer from stress. The problems they all face are different, yet they all elicit essentially the same biological response.
>
> In addition to what might be considered acute emotional or mental stressors, poverty, starvation, single-parent upbringing, pollution, and population density, are all examples of types of chronic stress that can cause a negative ripple-effect on society.
>
> Those who live in poverty, for example, have worse health than those who have a higher socioeconomic status. Moreover, individuals at each level of socioeconomic status also enjoy better health than individuals just below them. 2
>
> Frederick Douglas said that “it is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men” and in 2012 Shonkoff et al. highlighted that scarcity, stress, or financial instability during a child's development could cause "short-term physiologic and psychological adjustments that are necessary for immediate survival and adaptation, but which may come at a significant cost to long-term outcomes in learning, behavior, health, and longevity."
>
> A mechanism by which scarcity, stress, or financial instability impairs learning, behavior, health, and longevity is by increasing the concentration of the classical stress hormone cortisol in the blood. For instance, children who live in low-income homes were found to have higher levels of cortisol, which can increase susceptibility to a wide array of problems including heart disease and cancer later in life. 3
>
> The rise in cortisol is closely related to two other substances released in stress, estrogen, and serotonin, which are associated with aggressive behavior.

### Source 5 — #01: Thyroid, CO2, Redox Balance, and Hans Selye's Stress with Georgi Dinkov

Georgi Dinkov · Interview · May 3, 2019 · https://open.spotify.com/episode/2lolRyxtgPXLaCvEAmSZyQ

> **Danny Roddy:** Can you guys hear me now? I think my mic volume was too low, but hopefully you guys can. But Ray really perfectly termed stress in a few interviews he did before. But he said that it was a mismatch between the environment and the organism's resources. And I was like, oh, man, that's beautiful. But I think you're right that we should define those terms because obviously we're going to say them so much. And yeah, like in stress, metabolic stress or stress hormones are actually counter regulatory hormones. So they have different names and things. But did you, I mean, to bring it down a bit, like you're, you're listing off all these mechanisms for mitochondria and energy production and things like that. Do you think the temperature and pulse are practical ways to kind of take that information and utilize it in a day to day basis? Like. like a practical use for that type of information that you're talking about?

### Source 6 — Chronic stress can cause/drive liver cancer (HCC) by affecting tryptophan metabolism

Georgi Dinkov · Article · Jan 26, 2026 · https://haidut.me/?p=2952

> Little by little, we are seeing new studies call (timidly) for a “paradigm shift” (read: euphemism for massive failure) in medicine when it comes to cancer prevention and treatment. While the focus for the last 100+ years has been on genetics and (less so) to carcinogen exposure of carcinogenic infections (e.g. hepatitis), the fact that virtually no progress has been made in the cancer field over the last 50+ years calls for a dramatic shift in approach. Chronic stress is viewed by oncology as little more than nuisance, important only to the degree to which it can influence a cancer patient’s mental health, and even then psychiatry claims that a person’s vulnerability to stress is largely genetic. Medicine is still likely decades away from viewing stress as a true carcinogen, but the study below directly makes that claim. More specifically, it found that chronic stress (to which virtually all modern societies are exposed) directly drives HCC by shifting the metabolism of the amino acid L-tryptophan towards a pathway that produced immunosuppressive and inflammatory metabolites, which allows HCC to form, or to grow more aggressively if already present.
>
> [references]

### Source 7 — Episode 4: Georgi Dinkov (Haidut) on Estrogen and Cortisol

Georgi Dinkov · Interview · Feb 27, 2020 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFO4zs7C5L4

> **Georgi Dinkov:** The second thing is, if you are in a situation where you think it is worth it for money or for some other reasons, well, everyone lives their own life, I cannot give people advice on exactly what to do because in some cases a person has no choice, but if you have a choice, for me there is no situation in which the choice of stress is worth it. That is, whether you will be given more money, whether you will make some spectacular career, whether you will become famous, male or female, we are talking about both sexes, whether you will make some discoveries that almost... Again, at some point it is a matter of money and fame, this is what the modern world offers if you are willing to pay the price of stress. My advice based on the evidence I have seen is that the price of stress is infinite. It cannot be paid in any way, regardless of what this system of the modern world tries to offer you in exchange. And if you have a choice, try to remove yourself from that situation or those situations that torment you chronically. If this cannot be done, then we get to the point where we do not speak of so-called interventions, whether with diet, whether with various supplements, which can to some extent block the effects of chronic stress. One of the most universal supplements, which the Bulgarian, of course, has known since time immemorial, is aspirin. But to this day there is no official explanation from modern medicine for how aspirin works and why it works. The only explanation given for aspirin is that it is an anti-inflammatory agent and inhibits an enzyme called cyclooxygenase. Accordingly, when this enzyme is inhibited, the production of such substances that lead to chronic inflammation in the body decreases. I will mention something that I will have for the next episode.

### Source 8 — How to Naturally Lower Cortisol & Optimize Your Health with Georgi Dinkov

Georgi Dinkov · Interview · Oct 27, 2019 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELq81dh3s64

> **Georgi Dinkov:** You perceive a threat, you perceive something that requires you to muster up a response and then as a result your brain sends signals to your pituitary gland, pituitary gland sends another signal to your adrenals and they start pumping out cortisol and adrenaline and as we discussed in previous podcasts the role the point of these stress hormones cortisol and cortisol and adrenaline is to supply the cells in your body with extra fuel and where they get this fuel from is cortisol essentially starts to melt many of your tissues mostly muscles but muscles skin brain liver spleen pretty much anything that consists of amino acid will be at the target for cortisol and adrenaline starts shedding your fatty tissue So the goal basically is to help you get over the stress, to overcome whatever obstacle you're facing, and then survive and move on. Now this actually has a very good reason, this mechanism has a very good reason for existing from an evolutionary perspective, where most of the stresses that our ancestors experienced were brief, intense, but then they went away. let's say you're chasing an antelope in the savannah you're hunting but within an hour or two you know the hunt is over and hopefully you got what you needed and that's it uh if if a predator is chasing you you know chances are you you will not be engaged in a marathon for 26 miles the predator catches you pretty quickly or you escape and then again it's over So this basically acute stress response has been shown to be perfectly normal and physiological and the release of cortisol and adrenaline for brief periods of time has been shown to not be highly detrimental. but guess what our modern lifestyle has resulted in us living in a situation which resembles being chased by a saber-toothed tiger almost 24 7.

### Source 9 — BV #1: Bryan Johnson’s Longevity Diet, How Stress Affects Our Cells, & Whether Glucagon is Evil

Danny Roddy · Interview · Sep 19, 2024 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tXXW85Sb4o

> **Jay Feldman:** Yeah, and it's based on research that requires interpretation if you want to actually get it right. I mean, in the same way that we can talk metformin, calorie restriction, anything else, the lab value ranges that are determined are based on... often reductionist assumptions and correlations and things like that. I think all of us have talked about issues with low cholesterol levels in the past. I mean, that is the territory that you fall into when you are just taking these endpoints and looking at health as... a computer program and you just you know these studies just prove that this is the right formula and you just do everything you can to create that formula i mean that's that's i think this is all to be expected when that happens but do do we want to move on i mean feel free to comment on that but do we want to move on past brian johnson
>
> **Danny Roddy:** i'm happy to move on you uh so next next segment correct yeah Okay, so our bioenergetic basics, you know, I have a trademark on this, Jay, so I don't know. I'm just joking. So why don't we bring it down a little bit and talk about like, what is stress? And so obviously helped popularize by Hans Selye and I threw some things into this, talking about how varied stress can be. And in some of Hans Selye's books, he was talking about how excitement can be stressful, you know, waiting for a loved one to get home. And so I think at least from me talking with other people, I think it's usually thought of as like, oh, I had an argument with Mike and now I'm stressed out, you know, but I think in the bioenergic space, when we're talking about stress, it's more on a cellular level. And so if your cells are not getting oxygen or not getting sugar, they're going to start adapting. sometimes favorably, but usually unfavorably, and release lactic acid, cytokines, et cetera, and cause an increase in the brain to release stress hormones. So what is your guys' basic view of stress?

### Source 10 — Ketosis, or: How to Induce Metabolic Stress

Danny Roddy · Video Transcript · Nov 26, 2014 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHL7CyKoHPE

> This resulted in the organism mounting an adaptive stress response to restore stability. Over time, this chronic adaptive stress response would become less and less efficient, leading to the disorganization of the entire organism and ultimately death. Another way to think about it is that glucose, oxygen, and especially carbon dioxide are the most basic anti-stress factors. and that you wouldn't want to do anything to interfere with the utilization or the generation of these substances. So now that that's out of the way, let's talk about one reason why ketosis actually mimics the stress metabolism. If there's one thing to take away from this video, it's that becoming a fat burner, as they say, or increasing the rate of lipolysis through carbohydrate restriction voluntarily is a hallmark of aging and disease. For instance, one study found that free fatty acid levels increase long before hyperglycemia becomes present, and another said that there seems to be little doubt that there are signals for increased mobilization of fat in shock, trauma, and sepsis. And another quote, the enhanced mobilization and oxidation of fat is one of the fundamental responses to stress. The mechanism here is that in the short term, adrenaline is increased, squeezing all of the glycogen out of the liver and liberating free fatty acids into the blood. Over the long term, cortisol and a variety of other hormones, especially from the pituitary, increase the rate of lipolysis, slowing the metabolism and bringing the renewal of the entire organism to a screeching halt. Another way ketosis mimics the stress metabolism is by producing less carbon dioxide. This happens primarily by the oxidation of free fatty acids providing much less carbon dioxide than that of glucose. Glucose oxidation by way the link reaction and the enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase provides far more carbon dioxide than the oxidation of free fatty acids. In addition to being a basic anti-stress factor, Dr. Chris Masterjohn has recently pointed out that carbon dioxide is a critical cofactor for the assimilation of the oh so important fat soluble vitamins. a point that the entire paleo and ancestral health community has completely ignored. The final point I wanted to get across is that ketosis is essentially a hibernation-like state for humans.

### Source 11 — Ep. 99 Interview Danny Roddy: The Wisdom of Ray Peat, and How Elevation Will Help You Live Longer

Danny Roddy · Interview · Nov 24, 2021 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7F-rIgoHd8

> **Lucas:** Yeah, so one of the things that I loved that he introduced me to were... that it's like these things were stressful that I didn't know were stressful, like x-rays. Like I knew x-rays weren't good for you, but I didn't understand that it was like, no, there's no amount of x-rays that are good for you. Until Ray said, look, you know, at a cellular level, x-rays at any level are not good. So what are some of the things that Ray says are stressful, which normal people, other than x-rays, outside of those who study health, wouldn't know about? Do you ever mention like, oh, this is stressful, and you see surprise from your viewers or normies or whatnot?
>
> **Danny Roddy:** Yeah. I guess there are a bunch of different types of stress, like a calcium to phosphate ratio of the food a person eats. so if they eat significantly more phosphorus than calcium they'll like activate their parathyroid glands to release parathyroid hormone and so that's like a type of stress you know and and so of course it's one big system and it's a complex biochemical web of triggering other hormones like parathyroid hormone doesn't just act alone or anything like that but the way i really think simply about it and it goes back to what we're talking about with the blood sugar like if the blood sugar gets too low that's like a basic trigger for increasing adrenaline and as the short-term stress hormone and cortisol is the long-term stress hormone and like cortisol activating aromatase and turning testosterone into estrogen and then estrogen activating the pituitary to release prolactin or more acth or fsh lh or whatever like and so it i i think these systems are like trying to um they're just being chronically activated more and more and more as we get older you know and then all of us can uh know how how more amplified the stress response is since of like march of 2020 you know like Almost everybody I talk to these days seems to be doing a lot worse than they were in 2019. All of our lives have gotten way more stressful with all these bizarre rules and mandates and things like that. And then thyroid is at the heart of all of that. And so keeping the energy metabolism up or keeping the thyroid up helps a person resist the... destructive effects of stress. So keeping the adrenaline low, keeping the cortisol low, et cetera, et cetera. So it's kind of like a seesaw, like a metabolic tug-of-war of energy versus the stress substances.

_Generated 2026-07-20 from the Bioenergetic Oracle corpus._