Energy-based model explains how chronic stress transforms into disease over time

it sounds like the authors are suggesting that additional energy usage caused by stress can, in isolation from other causes, be a mechanism for disease. But that doesn’t make much sense:

  - our metabolisms are adaptable, so why wouldn’t this increase in energy use simply be offset by an increase in energy production? It can’t be that people who are stressed in general aren’t getting enough energy, because that would correlate stress with weight loss, but I would argue that there are plenty of overweight people with stress.

  - if the argument is that an increased metabolism by itself is the culprit, then why wouldn’t people with higher metabolisms in general — like anyone who exercises regularly, but certainly athletes — not also experience more disease? If your answer is “that’s different for some reason”, then that means that increased energy usage and metabolism is not by itself the cause, which suggests it may not be the cause at all.

Furthermore, even granting the supposition that stress requires increased energy usage, their abstract doesn’t make much sense:

  - “Living organisms have a limited capacity to consume energy.” Okay, so that means that no matter how stressed we get, there’s a cap to the energy we can use. But how is that relevant, since it also applies to exercise or other energy utilization by the body? Why does a limited capacity to consume energy only apply to stress?

  - “Overconsumption of energy by [stress handling] brain-body processes leads to … excess energy expenditure above the organism’s optimum”. Thats basically a tautology, but more importantly, it doesn’t tell us that energy consumption above “optimal” — which seems extremely vague — is a bad thing.

  - “In turn, [excess energy consumption above the optimal] accelerates physiological decline in cells, laboratory animals, and humans, and may drive biological aging”. So that “may” is a pretty good reason to dismiss this, since again why wouldn’t this lead to increased disease among athletes or anyone with higher metabolism?

  - “Mechanistically, the energetic restriction of growth, maintenance and repair processes leads to the progressive wear-and-tear of molecular and organ systems” Maybe, but why are they energetically restricted if metabolism has increased to provide more energy? And again, why don’t we then see increased disease and aging in anyone who exercises regularly, since that exercise not only uses energy that restricts growth, maintenance and repair, but exercise causes more need for repair.

I think the core problem is that it’s all going to boil down to how you define “optimum”, which the authors conveniently don’t. The authors are going to be left with defining “optimum” as meaning “that energy usage which does not cause disease”. But that’s no different than simply claiming “stress causes disease”, so this model describes nothing, since it tells us nothing about how to identify non-optimum energy usage or how non-optimum energy usage causes disease.

I think the theory is that exercise has many other benefits that make up for the increased energy usage.

I think this study is related to two books I read this summer: Burn, by Herman Pontzer, presents his "constrained energy expenditure hypothesis," and Exercised, by Daniel E. Lieberman, discusses his "costly repair hypothesis."

Together, they try to explain why exercise can force your body to stop using its energy to destroy itself (inflammation, autoimmune diseases) and instead use its energy to restore itself (releasing antioxidants, repairing damage).

Link to full paper:

https://www.picardlab.org/uploads/7/7/8/4/77845210/2022_bobb...

Lots of interesting stuff about mitochondrial allostatic load. It's essentially a Goldilocks problem - the car that's never driven breaks down quickly when you take it out for a drive, but if you're constantly pushing the accelerator and slamming the brakes, the car's lifetime is cut in half. The paper seems to focus on social and psychological factors that unnecessarily increase stress:

> "From this energetic perspective, the evolution of likes and dislikes, feelings and emotions, and approach/withdrawal behaviors arose to minimize the energetic cost of life."

Case example: Someone just asked me about my holiday season plans and my blood pressure probably went through the roof... I think I'm going to send them this paper.

When I search (amazon, google, and other searches) for one these books, the other also shows up as a very close result. And vice versa as well.