Interesting Trivia

Found this while doing some more research on cortisol. Glad I didn't die after *I* 'spawned'.

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Salmon amaze us with their spectacular leaps up waterfalls, in their single-minded quest to return and lay eggs in the freshwater stream of their birth. Then they die. But why? In his book, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers, Dr. Robert M. Sapolsky explains.

"If you catch salmon right after they spawn, just when they are looking a little green abound the gills, you find they have huge adrenal glands, peptic ulcers, and kidney lesions; their immune systems have collapsed, and they are teeming with parasites and infections.

"Moreover, the salmon have stupendously high glucocorticoid concentrations in their bloodstreams. When salmon spawn, regulation of their glucocorticoid secretion breaks down. Basically, the brain loses its ability to measure accurately the quantities of circulating hormones and keeps sending a signal to the adrenals to secrete more of them. Lots of glucocorticoids can certainly bring about all those diseases with which the salmon are festering.

"Is this glucocorticoid excess really responsible for their death? Yep. Take a salmon right after spawning, remove its adrenals, and it will live for a year afterward."