Healthy adrenal function is important for managing stress.
Everyone experiences stress in their own way. Stress can motivate one person while it incapacitates another person. Stress that negatively affects a person is damaging to our overall health. What part of our body controls how we respond to stress, and what does long-term stress do to our overall health?
Stress is managed in the body by the adrenal glands, but they don’t work alone. Stress perceived in our brain stimulates the pituitary to make high levels of ACTH hormone which stimulates the adrenal glands to secrete specific hormones. These hormones include cortisol, adrenaline, and noradrenaline that help the body respond to physical and emotional stress. The adrenal glands are a key component of how the body adapts to stress.nih+1
Current scientific evidence suggests that:
- Chronic stress can contribute to health problems such as cardiovascular disease, impaired immune function, anxiety, depression, and metabolic disorders.
- Maintaining healthy stress-management habits, such as regular exercise, adequate sleep, social connection, relaxation practices, and medical care when needed, supports the body’s overall stress-response system
- The popular concept of “adrenal fatigue” is not generally recognized as a medical diagnosis by mainstream endocrinology. True adrenal disorders, such as Addison’s disease or Cushing syndrome, are distinct medical conditions that require professional evaluation and treatment.
- Adrenal Dysfunction is the condition that occurs when a person is under severe stress for long periods of time.
Healthy adrenal function is important for managing stress, but overall longevity and health depend on the proper functioning of the entire stress-response system plus healthy lifestyle habits.
I’m sure you have heard of “Adrenal Fatigue” and for a while EVERYONE was mistakenly diagnosed with this syndrome, I want to talk about Adrenal Stress/Adrenal Dysfunction which is a much different condition, that is not as severe and is more prevalent in modern society than complete Adrenal Collapse (Addisons Disease).
Adrenal Stress seems to be more common today because we have a never-ending series of stressors that we are faced with all day long every day to just live in society, work, play, communicate, love, hate, and to just stay alive in the 21st century. Humans weren’t created for this type of onslaught. Our adrenal gland’s purpose and function is to act on a moment’s notice to respond to big life-threatening events that could literally kill us. It is the “fight or flight” organ.
An example of what our adrenals were created to do is described in the following scenario.
You live in Colorado and you look out to your back yard as see your 4 year old facing a grizzly bear standing still screaming, terrified, your adrenal gland responds by secreting adrenaline, epinephrine, and norepinephrine which make your heart beat faster, stronger and sends blood to your brain and muscles and away from your gut to prepare you for running and fighting. In the same moment your adrenal also secretes DHEA that goes to the testes and ovaries and makes testosterone to strengthen your muscles for a fight. At the same time Cortisol rises and blood sugar increases for energy, and your inflammation decreases making pain less obvious so you can ignore pain and perform in whatever way saves you or your child. This gives you super-human strength. Lastly your aldosterone increases which increases blood pressure and blood pressure and keeps you from having to pee while you’re fighting for your child’s life. You run, grab your child, and run to safety faster than you ever thought possible while screaming “Whooo Bear, Whooo Bear!”. When you get inside the house your stress stops, your adrenal slows down, rests and the event is over. Your adrenal can recover.
That is what the adrenal was made for—to perform in times of dire stress! Obviously, we also need these hormones to function ar a much lower rate all the time, however it is the times of stress that wear the gland out. However, it was not made for chronic, 24-7 stress, like we all live with today. Our fast-paced world makes our adrenals react all day long and it wears our adrenals out!
How do we test for Adrenal Dysfunction?
A Cortisol blood test before 9 am in the morning is rarely a good picture of the number of adrenal hormones you are exposed to every day, all day long, but it is all we have. In general, it is one point on a line…a line that moves up and down all day long with every little stress.
Because we were built for intermittent and rare BIG stresses, and not constant stimulation of the adrenal gland, those of us who have constant unrelenting stress, quickly run out of gas, and are unable to respond to stress as is necessary….at some point our adrenals malfunction and they are severely fatigued and overwhelmed. That is why we all to some extent have adrenal stress.
Because it is hard to test for the undulating cortisol levels that go on every day, I ask questions of my patients that tell me whether they have that kind of stress, current, or built up, or chronic. I ask questions like:
“Do you feel overwhelmed when you are faced with a new problem?”
“Is anxiety the primary mood you feel?”
“Do you get palpitations when. You are upset?
“Does your fatigue start when you wake up?
“Are you retaining water?”
“Is your blood sugar rising?”
“Do you have trouble healing”
“Are you gaining belly fat and fat on the back of your neck?”
All of these are signs of super-stimulated and then low adrenal production of hormones.
The Adrenal Function and What you need to Maintain Your Adrenal Health
Your Adrenal glands produce 4 hormones that are essential to life. These hormones are not all purposed to help you combat stress, but all of them are stimulated when we are stressed. There hormones are:
- Norepinephrine/Epinephrine often called adrenaline
- DHEA – a precursor to testosterone
- Cortisol/Cortisone – regulate the immune system and glucose levels
- Aldosterone- controls water and salt balance in the body
The adrenal gland is managed from your brain, the pituitary hormone ACTH. The stress of course is sensed in our brain that increases ACTH that stimulates the Adrenal gland. The way you can rest your adrenal other than checking out of society, is to suppress the secretion of ACTH by taking a small amount of animal adrenal. It sounds simple and it is simpler than any other options, and all it requires is a combination of animal adrenal with the vitamins and minerals that are needed to support the healing of the adrenal gland.
There is a medical grade Adrenal Treatment for Adrenal Stress available. It is called a Glandular because it contains animal adrenal gland, parotid gland, thyroid gland, thymus gland and spleen, all glands. It also has vitamin Bs, Vitamin C which is necessary for the adrenal to handle stress and some amino acids necessary for repair of the adrenal and to handle stress.
My personal adrenal fatigue story starts with the stress of getting into med school, going to medical school and then residency and did not stop until I stopped taking call for 36 hour stretches and stopped delivering babies around the clock. I have a 30 -year history of severe stress that burned my adrenal out and resulted in severe fatigue, atrial fibrillation, weight gain, emotional exhaustion, anxiety and endometriosis. It literally took me 3 years of sleeping more than 7 hours a night, rest, eating right, weight training and replacing my testosterone and estradiol with pellets to get back to health after what I put myself through.
I also took adrenal glandulars to stop the tachycardia and anxiety I felt every time an unexpected stress occurred. Adrenal glandulars work and it helped me get back to normal. I will probably be taking it the rest of my life.
So, if you feel that your body has been under too much stress, and your adrenal is suffering, my advice is to make a plan to decrease your stress. Whether this is possible or not think about how you feel to find out where you are in terms of the severity of adrenal stress.
Stage I: Every unexpected stress causes you to have higher heart rate and anxiety attacks.
Stage II: You are more frustrated, irritable, and can’t concentrate.
Stage III: Exhaustion, physical, emotional, and mental exhaustion. Illness and Distress.
Once you determine what you are up against then do something about it. Take 1-3 Adrenal Glandulars a day, take Vitamin C 1.000 mg po per day, methylated Multi B vitamins daily.
Exercise every day, with weights 3 times a week.
Fresh fruit and vegetables, plus plenty of protein, water and electrolytes.
Grams of protein = to your weight in lbs.
Sleep 8 hours a night and go to bed before 10 pm.
If your anxiety is overwhelming, then an antidepressant with anti-anxiety medicine will be needed for a period of time. Taking both the Glandular and anti-depressant and stopping the antidepressant in the future will help you survive in the interim. The sooner you act the faster you will get better. The glandular is over the counter and very safe.
This Health cast was written and presented by Dr. Kathy Maupin, M.D., Bio-identical Hormone Replacement Expert and Author. www.BioBalanceHealth.com • (314) 993-0963. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel and please check “ Like “. Follow us on Facebook and Instagram at BioBalanceHealth.
