Worrier or Warrior?

The holiday season is undeniably one of the most vibrant times of the year as we carve out time with family and friends, share nourishing meals together, and celebrate our cherished traditions.

For many of us, however, the holidays can also be quite the trigger for stress. In fact, it’s been reported that approximately 88% of Americans felt stressed while celebrating the holidays, with the number one stressor being finances.

At D’Adamo Personalized Nutrition, we’re here to help you navigate holiday stress so you can focus your mind and body on all the splendor of this time of year. All of December we’ll be discussing how to blunt stress, restore nerve balance and develop more restful sleep habits. This week we will be discussing our Catechol product and its benefits in alleviating ‘fight-or-flight’ type stress.

Catecholamines

To understand this product and its purpose, it’s best to understand the family stress signaling molecules known as catecholamines, and how they work. Catecholamines include epinephrine (adrenaline), norepinephrine (noradrenaline), and dopamine - the three critical stress hormones that drive the body's "fight-or-flight" response.

1. Epinephrine increases heart rate and cardiac output, dilates the airways to improve oxygen intake, and mobilizes energy from sugar. It also redirects blood flow toward muscles and away from non-essential organs like the digestive system.

2. Norepinephrine primarily acts as a vasoconstrictor, increasing blood pressure and enhancing alertness.

3. Dopamine, while not directly involved in acute stress responses, serves as a precursor for the other catecholamines and regulates mood and motivation in the brain.

Catecholamines are useful to ramp up our awareness during times of great stress, but when the stressor is over an extended period, elevated catecholamines can lead to less-than-ideal effects, such as restlessness, agitation, high blood pressure, and insomnia. Our ancestors likely experienced short periods of high stress followed by long quiet lulls. This allowed time for recovery and rebalancing. Modern life typically is characterized by long periods of low-level stress, without the opportunities our ancestors had to regenerate.

DPN Catechol

Catechol’s utility is in its ability to support the breakdown of catecholamines by targeting the activity of an enzyme called COMT, short for catechol-O-methyltransferase. In the realm of genetics, you can have a few mutations in COMT that affect the rate at which it completes this breakdown.

• If COMT is sluggish, the individual is classified as a “worrier,” as they’re slow to degrade catecholamines, which leads to a “bottleneck” of these stress-signaling molecules. This means that when catecholamines spike in stressful events, it takes the body much longer to clear them out, and thus stress lingers for much longer.

• If your COMT is fast, the individual is a “warrior,” and they’re quick to clear out catecholamines, and often exhibit higher stress resilience.

Because of its unique three-layer design Catechol can help smooth out these COMT variations:

• Layer 1: A base of B vitamins (including methylcobalamin, the active form of vitamin B12) and the mineral selenium.
• Layer 2: A layer of amino acids, including tyrosine, methionine and trimethylglycine; all known to be critical nutritional factors that can be depleted due to occasional stress or poor diet.
• Layer 3: A blend of two well-researched botanicals that have been studied for their effects on occasional stress: Magnolia and Rhodiola.

While slow COMT individuals benefit from supporting this crucial enzyme, anyone under chronic stress can benefit from Catechol’s tension-clearing benefits, which support the body’s natural calm-down process so you can enjoy all the joy this season has to offer.