Adrenaline Junkies

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Adrenaline Junkies and Their Impacts on the Body
Introduction
Adrenaline is what many people know in layman’s language as the fright and flight hormone. The little-known fact about adrenaline hormone is that it is also a neurotransmitter. Adrenaline is a chemical released from the medullar section of the adrenal glands in the body that is useful in giving a person the energy to take off whenever he is frightened. When a person is agitated, adrenaline is released into the blood stream to give the person strength to fight the aggressor. A depth coverage of the hormone gives a well-defined process that it takes adrenaline in connection with the brain and the body muscles to prepare a person for flight or fight after a fright and aggression respectively. The presence of the hormone into the blood stream is an automatic reflex action that the body should carry out without the deliberate control by the person. It is useful to have an automatic process in the release and clearance of the hormone as its excessive prevalence in the blood stream can be disastrous. To the people who are addicted to the adrenaline junkies, they manually instigate the release and the sustenance of adrenaline in the body. This is possible when they manually create fighting or aggressing conditions that end up releasing excess adrenaline in their bodies. A case example is deliberate jumping off a cliff in a controlled system that frightens, but the person is protected from the crash landing.

People like the feel that follows participation in the adrenaline junkies as their body get the energy created from adrenaline release. However, they don’t know that continued use of the adrenaline junkies increases the level of adrenaline in the body that is a significant contributor to the person’s slow death.
The Adrenaline Secretion Mechanism
When a person encounters a frightful or a stressing situation, the nerve impulses connecting the adrenal glands get active through the brain signal. The activation opens the synapses and adrenaline flow from the cortex of the adrenal glands into the blood stream (Coupland and Selby 539). At the same time, the brain coordinates the release of the cortisol from the same area, a steroid hormone that helps in the control of the body metabolism. The two hormones raise the blood glucose plasma that actively works to convert the blood sugar into active energy that is fast transported to the critical fright response areas for immediate action. In the process of changing the body metabolic rate, changes take place in the body to ready it for action.
Causal Factors of the Adrenaline Released In the Blood Stream
The heartbeat rate; increasing the heartbeat rate is important in the continued supply of oxygenated blood from the lungs to the brain and the flight muscles. These are the core response units in the body. Since their activities increase beyond the optimal leaves in a fright situation, they need more energy to carry out functions, thus the increased heart beat rate.
Increasing blood pressure; increasing the blood pressure level through the increase of the blood sugar levels is important in providing the glucose sugars that can be oxidized to create energy for the core flight organs, like the heart, the lungs, the brain and the flight muscles (Campbell and Michael 62).
Expanding the air passages of the lungs; the lungs airwaves also get expanded to ensure that the rate of oxygen exchange is higher than the normal. This is accompanied by the increased rate of breathing that helps in the exchange of the fresh oxygen in the blood and removing out the waste through exhalations.
Enlarging the pupil in the eye; the pupils of the eyes are also increased in size to create visual accuracy in the flight situation. The person would thus require to see the frightening situation well and give appropriate responses, sometimes in a reflex action. The pupils are then dilated to give a bigger focus, thus helping in decision making and creating a response strategy.
Altering the body’s metabolism and redistributing blood to the muscles; one of the most important functions that the flight hormones do in conjunctions with cortisol is the alteration of the body metabolisms. During the fright situation, the body would like to maximize the use of the blood glucose and only use it in critical organs that would be necessary (Cannon 85-7). The two hormones, therefore, divert most of the body metabolism to include only the vital organs, shutting down those other organs that are less important in the situation. The brain, heart, lungs and the flight muscles are given priority, and other systems like digestive system are reduced in activity, or shut down altogether.
The body metabolic reactions are supposed to release, use and destroy the adrenaline hormones automatically. In normal circumstances, the body can monitor the whole process and maintain these conditions at the optimal levels (Goldstein 73). However, adrenaline junkies create artificial situations that force the body to release and sustain adrenaline in the body for a very long time. This has health related consequences. Prolonged use of the adrenaline in the body causes undesirable conditions that are associated with each category of the adrenaline functions. There are consequences in the prolonged heartbeat, over dilation of the blood vessels, and the changes in the body metabolic activities (Mccorry 216-9).
Consequences Of Adrenaline Release In The Blood Stream
Consequences of increased the heartbeat rate; excess adrenaline sustained in the body that leads to the increased levels of heart beat would mean that the heart would reach a level of the cardiac muscles being in need of replenishment and rejuvenation. Since most of the other systems in the body are reduced due to the activate sympathetic nervous system, the rate of replenishing the cardiac muscles and cells is slow. Thus the heart may ultimately fail.
Consequences of Increasing blood pressure; high blood pressure in the body would mean that the rate at which the body converts the blood sugar is accelerated. Once this is exhausted, the liver chips in by giving out glycogen that is also converted to energy and distributed to the flight muscles and the brain that continuously requires them. The glycogen also gets exhausted and then body remains with only the option of converting the fat cell in the form of triglycerides. The body may also be in need of using the energy stored in the form of proteins in the body organs. However, the overriding challenge, in this case, is that the presence of Cortisol alongside adrenaline that activates the sympathetic nervous system and ensures that most organism including the liver that would produce insulin to activate such energy is also prohibited. According to the body general regulation system, this controversy is not planned to exist as the Cortisol and adrenaline existence in the body is supposed to be short lived. With no insulin, proteins and fats cannot be converted to more energy to sustain the fright and flight mode that the adrenaline junkies maintain their body.
Cortisol and adrenaline, while activating the sympathetic nervous system also locks out the digestive system that would supply more energy-giving substances through ingestions and digestion. The resulting impacts are that the flight cells and all the other active tissues in the body get starved of the energy they need to operate in the fright and flight mode. Cells that get starved of the energy for metabolism, as well as oxygen, die out. This is very dangerous to the cardiac, lung and brain cells as their destruction due to insufficient energy can lead to complications like stroke if the brain cells are involved, or heart attack of the cardiovascular cells are involved.
The body cells to a small degree have a way to adapt to the deprived conditions. When the cells containing fats and proteins are denied access to sufficient insulin, they get adapted to the condition. The adaptation would mean that future release of insulin will have little impact on them. They develop a condition called impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) that may mean that the person may not be able to convert energy stored as proteins in the body organs or as fats in the tissue cannot be used. The cause and effect are evident in the fact that if the people did not take the sports in adrenaline junkies.
Moreover, such people who have reached the level of impaired glucose tolerance (IGT) will easily develop obesity and type 2 diabetes. This is because their body would be configured not to recognize insulin. Thus fats and proteins stored in the body would not be used. Therefore, participating in the adrenaline junkies have the causal effect of leading to obesity and type 2 diabetes in the long run. This is also another case of the indirect relationship between the developments of the chronic conditions with participating in adrenaline junkies.
When the sympathetic nervous system is sustained over long periods of time, the mucus secretion in the stomach that end up lining the stomach walls is one of the services that the body stops because it is non-essential. The stomach is thus left bare, and when the stomach acid is finally released, a burning sensation is felt in the stomach (Heslop 886-8). It is because the adrenaline junkie condition surprised the covering of the stomach walls appropriately. When this is highly prolonged, it may develop even into stomach ulcers.
Conclusion
Participating in the adrenaline junkies may have an exhilarating feeling on the people. This is important as the body reacts to the stressful and fighting conditions, preparing itself for flight. When the condition is prolonged the impacts of excess adrenaline and Cortisol hormones, however, may impede the normal body functions as they activate the sympathetic nervous system. Such people who are commoners in the adrenaline junkies will be susceptible to constant tiredness, obesity and type 2 diabetes. Moreover, the people may experience some ulcers that result from the imbalanced body metabolism. Such people are therefore highly discouraged from constant participation is the adrenaline junkies as the consequences are serious medical conditions.

Works Cited
Campbell, Ronald D., and Michael Bagshaw. Human performance and limitations in aviation. John Wiley & Sons, 2008.
Cannon, Walter Bradford. Bodily changes in pain, hunger, fear, and rage: An account of recent researches into the function of emotional excitement. D. Appleton and company, 1915.
Coupland, R. E., and J. E. Selby. “The blood supply of the mammalian adrenal medulla: a comparative study.” Journal of anatomy 122.Pt 3 (1976): 539.
Goldstein, David S. Adrenaline, and the inner world: An introduction to scientific integrative medicine. JHU Press, 2008.
McCorry, Laurie Kelly. “Physiology of the autonomic nervous system.” American journal of pharmaceutical education 71.4 (2007).