Hangry = Adrenal Fatigue

Sugar cravings?
Irritable when hungry?
Anxious?
Crash with stress?
Recurrent viral infections?

These are all symptoms that our adrenal "stress handler" glands are fatigued. The adrenal glands produce cortisol, which is a stress hormone that keeps blood sugar from crashing during stress. It also regulates our immune defense systems.

Chronic stress can exhaust your adrenal stress handler glands, which results in not enough cortisol being made in your body. When that happens, you begin to experience some, or all, of the symptoms listed above. But once you recognize that’s what’s happening, you can easily take steps to improve your adrenal function. Here’s how:

1. Drink more water and eat more salt (unless you have high blood pressure or heart failure).
2. Turn off and tune out the things that leave you feeling bad, including divisive or frightening media reporting. So if it feels bad to watch, listen to or read something, just turn it off and ignore it (assuming the news isn’t so earth shattering that doing so would somehow lead to your become divorced or homeless).
3. Cut down on your sugar intake, because excessive sugar in your food puts you on an emotional roller coaster. This will be easier once you begin the adrenal support below.
4. Take 1-2 capsules each morning of a supplement called Adrenaplex®. This is a mix of nine nutrients, herbals, and adrenal glandulars that do a great job of keeping your adrenal glands healthy. People typically find that their energy and mood smooth out in just the first few days of use.

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Because of the stress of modern life, I find that about 1/4 of the population have symptoms of inadequate adrenal function. For most people, the simple measures above will take care of it.

But for some people, stress has become so severe that a key hormone control center in the brain (called the hypothalamus) malfunctions. Research shows this to be the case for conditions such as fibromyalgia, ME, long COVID, and chronic fatigue syndrome.

In these conditions, people have often lost 50% of their hormonal function. But for the tests to be considered abnormal, they need to be in the lowest 2% of the population. You can be bedridden from low adrenal yet still have "normal" test results!

Why? The normal range for testing is defined as not being in the highest or lowest 2% of the population (called "2 standard deviations"). To give an idea of how poorly that works, any shoe size between 5 and 13 would be defined as “medically normal.” So according to this logic, if I try to put my size 12 foot in a size 7 shoe, the doctor would say that the “shoe size test” looks fine.

Another example? Medically, to be defined as having low income you need to make less than $8,100 a year. At such a ridiculously low number, that would classify about 80% of people in real poverty as having a “normal” income.

So you can see why the tests are often not reliable unless there is quite dramatic organ failure.

Testing

Because of this, I rely mostly on symptoms, rather than lab testing, when deciding whether to give adrenal support.
But there are a few tests can add helpful information as long as the doctor does not rely solely on the "normal" range. These include:

1. A fasting morning cortisol. The normal range varies by lab but is usually about 6-20 mcg/dl. If under 15, I consider that significant if the person also has symptoms of adrenal fatigue. Doctors may prefer to do a morning free cortisol level.
2. Salivary cortisol. This can add some helpful information, but varies so dramatically from person to person and day to day, that it is usually only helpful in research studies looking at large populations. The test kits will have you collect saliva 4 times a day to look at what the cortisol level is.
3. DHEA-Sulfate. This is a key adrenal hormone. What is healthy can vary so dramatically, that it should be interpreted by a holistic physician.
4. Pregnenolone. This is the key building block for most adrenal and ovarian hormones. It is also frequently low in these conditions because of the viral infections. The normal range varies by lab, but it’s usually about 25 to 250 ng/dl. If it is under 75 ng/dl, I consider a trial of 30 milligrams of pregnenolone each morning to see if it helps over a few months. As with most things, stop it if it feels worse. People should also not take it without a physician’s supervision if they have a hormone sensitive cancer.

Love & Blessings,
Dr. T