By Dr. Jean-Jacques Dugoua, ND

If the daily hustle and bustle is getting to you and you can’t remember the last time you weren’t stressed, it’s time to take charge and get your stress under control.

Stress causes diseases
Chronic stress can lead to a number of diseases. Stress can raise your blood pressure and heart rate and put you at risk of heart disease. The negative effects of the stress hormone cortisol can increase your risk of contracting diabetes and stress can lower your immune system, increasing your risk of contracting an infection, such as the common cold.

There are a number of practices you can try to reduce your stress, such as exercise and proper nutrition. Vitamins may also help with some of the symptoms and diseases associated with stress.

Vitamin C reduces symptoms of stress
Humans cannot make vitamin C, so we must get it from our diet. The adrenal glands, the principal hormonal glands of stress, tend to be depleted of vitamin C during periods of chronic stress.

A study was conducted at the University of Trier in Germany on the effects of high doses of vitamin C on the physiological response to stress. Over a period of 14 days, 60 healthy young adults received 3,000 mg of vitamin C daily and another 60 young adults received a placebo. The researchers observed that the group receiving vitamin C had lower blood pressure and lower cortisol levels and reported that they did not feel as stressed.

Vitamin C helps treat the common cold
As chronic stress weakens your immune system, it is no wonder that you are more likely to catch a cold during periods of stress. A study was conducted at the University of Helsinki in Finland to review the existing studies on vitamin C and the common cold. Since 1971, 21 placebo-controlled studies were conducted to establish whether vitamin C affects the common cold.

Although the studies did not show consistent evidence that vitamin C supplementation reduces the incidence of the common cold in the general population, they found that it reduces the severity of the common cold. In each of the 21 studies, vitamin C reduced the duration and the severity of the symptoms of the common cold by an average of 23%. Based on these results, the researchers recommended that vitamin C be considered in the treatment of the common cold

More stress tips
Vitamin C is an excellent supplement for alleviating some of the negative effects of stress. You should also consider relora and a B complex to help manage your stress. For more stress management tips, visits the Truestar Stress Tips or complete the Truestar Vitamins Profile and choose our stress plan.

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