Adrenal Gland Problems: Still a Poorly Understood Secret
by Dr Arlo Gordin
Many of my patients have been told before they have an Adrenal Gland Problem. But many haven’t ever gotten the results they wish. You may have taken (many!) adrenal nutritional supplements, but the problems that are caused, worsened or complicated by your adrenal malfunction or exhaustion still persist or even got worse!
Why? Because adrenals respond to many things in life: what you eat, your emotions, pain and more. Many times they have supplements that aren’t effective enough. And even sometimes with the right nutrients, they didn’t take them properly to get the job done. It can take more to get the adrenal job done, and most doctors don’t know or help enough to get that “more” achieved. And since precision chiropractic is often very essential, many doctors aren’t equipped to do the complete necessary job.
You often may need to repair your adrenal glands as a first priority in order to get healthy. You have two of these little guys, one on top of each kidney. They put out a number of essential hormones for health, and they respond to, and can be damaged by, a number of life’s less desirable but often not easily avoidable occurrences.
They also, like your other glands, tend to get less healthy and productive just with age. Their hormone output drops with increasing years, and can also plummet from shocks or stressors, physical and/or biochemical ones.
These adrenal hormones release into your bloodstream. They include:
A. The blood sugar hormone that keeps your energy up between meals. If it is low, fatigue, exhaustion, headaches, anxiety, depression and other symptoms of hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) result.
B. The anti-inflammatory/anti-pain hormone “cortisone” that keeps your body from pain, as well as from inflammatory and auto-immune illnesses. These include illnesses whose names end in “itis” (inflammation of) such as colitis, arthritis, dermatitis and bronchitis. Also allergies, asthma, and breathing and digestive diseases.
C. The salt balancing hormones that tell your kidneys to not lose all your essential mineral salts into your urine. Reductions in these play a role in such things as abnormal swellings of the body, and heart and energy malfunctions,
D. Adrenaline which gives you bursts of energy in “stress” situations, and
E. Estrogen for the post-menopausal woman that helps her stay more hormonally balanced. The adrenals make the only source of estrogen (female hormone) in the body after menopause.
F. They are now credited with making a Sleep-Supporting hormone, a big game changer for some. Because of the profound effects of these hormones, if they are out of balance, big problems are the result. Temporarily they may be pushed into high gear by stress or incorrect eating, which later eventually leads to their burnout. Burnout of the adrenals underlies a great many health problems, and worsens symptoms in the areas of your body that you are already weakened from birth (genetics) or from other insults and causes.
Overeating carbohydrates (sweet or starchy foods including sugar, breads, cereals, etc) will cause an insulin reaction. Generally at the same time all the ill effects of over-secreting insulin occur, the adrenals will be burnt out on the rebound blood sugar crash that follows. Not balancing food properly, overeating carbs, especially ones that arrive fast as sugar in the blood, is one factor that wears out adrenals. Because insulin reactions to meals badly chosen in type and quantity, are the leading causes of :
1) Overweight
2) Placqued and clogged arteries
3) Heart attack and stroke (these two are the leading causes of death), eating better may be one of the best things you could do for yourself and your adrenal glands. Refer to eating "40-30-30", balancing protein, carbohydrate and oil intake in the right proportions when you eat and when you snack.
Fatigue is a frequent effect of worn-out adrenals. Because their hormones regulate the fueling (blood sugar supply) of cells, and especially those of the brain, underfueling results in low energy, worn-out-ness. Depression is another effect that may occur to an individual with an underfuelled brain and nervous system. Many other symptoms of a worn-out energy system and poorly functioning nerves also can result. The reason so many symptoms are possible with poorly regulated blood sugar is because it is the fuel for the brain and nerves, and they are involved in every pain and physical feeling you experience, as well as controlling and regulating EVERY body function. Sleep problems are also often a result of burnt out adrenals.
Your adrenals are also known as your “Stress Glands”. Mental and emotional stress, worry, anxiety over love, money, family, any of the usual (or unusual) sources, will eventually burn out the adrenals, and cripple their hormonal output. The man who figured this out (Hans Selye) was recognized by the Nobel committee. He also discovered that other types of stress besides emotional can burn them out. Physical or chemical stresses can also cause adrenal burnout. Ongoing pain, nerve system stress and malfunction, stimulant drugs, overdosing on caffeine, nicotine, or alcohol are on that list. Despite the fact that some of the highest accolades in science were awarded for this understanding, and it was broadly written about, few medical physicians give much thought to, or have approaches for assisting adrenals to repair or function. This comes as no surprise since most medical physicians are not trained or comfortable to practice nutrition or life-friendly direction. They are trained more with a prescription pad in one hand, and a scalpel in the other. As such they are happy to write scripts for pain-killers, anti-inflammatories, and even the hard-to-quit and side-effect ridden medication "cortisone" much more freely than well-informed sense would allow.
If you have a chronic inflammatory disorder, generally medicine or drugs are merely symptomatic treatment. Colitis, laryngitis, vaginitis, (notice the “itis” endings) are usually medically incurable, but just forever treatable, but only to reduce the symptoms. Chronic pain, fibromyalgia, torn up joints and arthritis are common effects with adrenal components. Now it is finally made its way to common medical understanding that inflammation is a basic factor in arthritis, and also in heart attack and strokes. The drug industry’s anti-inflammatory drugs do not treat causes, but only symptoms. Headaches and migraines similarly have important adrenal (and blood sugar) components. So do dizziness, vertigo and brain fog. Asthma and allergies have vital adrenal underpinnings. If ongoing medication is your recommended course, with no real end in sight, you could think about strengthening your adrenals and fixing what is actually causing the problems, not just spray painting over the symptoms with medications. Huge numbers of patients have multiple symptoms, problems and diseases related to adrenals.
When your adrenals are weak, the things that are harming them are generally winning, and those that could help them are losing. If you want to turn that around, you must try to discard or minimize the harmers, and bring on and support the helpers. Stress factors should be handled, chronic pain corrected, imbalanced eating repaired, to name a few possibilities. We do know how to guide you in getting these handled.
One great helper that can be instituted is to take adrenal support NUTRIENTS. Generally this can be done with supplements into which several adrenal support substances are combined. The right supplements should be prescribed, and the correct dose as well. Many adrenal supplements flood the market and the labels look great. But the actual effects are often not successful, and some, which contain “whole adrenal gland” even from “grass fed cows” have hormone content that sabotages your adrenals’ repair. Our supplements don’t have hormone content for that reason.
Adrenal rebuilding, although not an overnight process, is a cornerstone of many health miracle cases in our office. Chronically ill, pain-ridden, fibromyalgia and many times profoundly sick people have been restored to normal healthy lives. Migraine and headache sufferers, vertigo and brain fog, asthmatics, people with chronic pain, to name a few. Although many require effective chiropractic treatment to areas of the body get the adrenals restored. To get many very sick and beleaguered patients to well often takes being effective in adrenal restoration.
This is a critical arena of health to understand well and to apply. It is not likely that it could be done adequate justice in only a page or two of writing. I would refer you to our health class (in my name on YouTube and on drarlogordin.com), “Energy and Blood Sugar”. In that seminar a much more comprehensive discussion of this subject is covered, and the specifics of solution explained. Our current lifestyles present great stresses on our adrenals. It is no great surprise that many of us have poor adrenal output, nor that many chronic patients have really burnt out adrenals. If you fall into either category, one of the best things you could do is help your adrenals rebuild. While doing so, do strengthen your blood sugar handling system, and reduce your risks for numerous health problems. Adrenal dysfunction causes many problems that reduce function and happiness, many nasty and “incurable” diseases, as well as those that are the leading causes of death.
Far better to support life, live it healthily, without pain, inflammation, allergy, metabolic failure and actively to the fullest than to enrich the trillion dollar drug industry, and that only for the hope of short temporary relief.