Is Stress Measured in Joules?

Abstract

It is difficult to control, measure, calculate, reason, and write scientifically about an abstraction that lacks a generally accepted empirical definition, has no physical units of measure, and resists quantification. Usually, investigators of stress focus on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and neglect broader metabolic responses, but many have reported how energy, or specifically carbohydrate, supplementation suppressed HPA and other responses and prevented or reversed pathologies attributed to stress. Therefore, it is past time for controlled experiments to investigate the extent to which the concept of stress is superfluous and distracting from the mechanisms that regulate physiological responses to the environment.