On Saturday I traveled to Jasper, Indiana, to attend Dr. Whitney Gabhart’s seminar, “Hormones 101: Fat, Fatigued, and Female.”  (www.whitneygabhartnd.com) Although the sex hormones and the thyroid were also discussed, much emphasis was placed on today’s overly stressed adrenals.

So important is our adrenal health that Dr. Gabhart gave each participant a copy of Adrenal Fatigue, The 21^st Century Stress Syndrome by James L. Wilson, N.D., D.C., Ph.D. Multiple times Dr. Gabhart emphacized, “I want you to go home and read this book.”

Dr. Gabhart began the seminar stating that the thyroid and the adrenals have a relationship. As a side note, thyroid is sometimes called the “master gland.” It is like the gas pedal in your car. Your car won’t run without gas. Likewise, the thyroid affects every cell in your body. The adrenal in turn impacts the thyroid.

In terms of sex hormones, when you were a baby, all your sex hormones came from your adrenal glands. At puberty you got your hormones from the adrenal and the ovary because now it was time to reproduce. Then at menopause, you go back to getting your hormones from your adrenals.

The adrenal is the preservation gland. It is what allows you to lift a burning car to save someone. It is also your stress gland. In today’s culture, stress is a serious malady.

Here is a key point to remember: stress is accumulative. What that means is, just like the sun and the skin, skin damage is accumulative. The skin can be damaged for years, and then decades later the skin cancer shows up. Likewise, stress is accumulative. The adrenals can and do eventually become fatigued and exhausted.

The interesting thing about the adrenals is that there are two pathways in the body: the stress pathway and the sex hormone pathway. Since self preservation is the priority, when faced with a choice, the body shunts to the stress pathway. If we get half our hormones from the adrenals, one can then see the impact that stress has on hormone balance.

Dr. Gabhart explained the adrenals will wake you up at night if there is not enough glucose. This is the reason you wake up between 1:00 and 3:00 am. Adrenal fatigue is the culprit when a person complains, “I diet and exercise and still can’t lose weight.” The adrenal regulates the inflammatory process. “This is why you can hurt more.” The adrenal also regulates the immune system. This is why allergies, sinus problems, and food allergies start showing up after years of stress.

The good news: there’s lots you can do to heal your adrenals. I highly recommend Wilson’s book, Adrenal Fatigue. Section Three – “Helping Yourself Back to Health” – is full of information to restore the health of your adrenals. This section includes helpful information concerning 1) Lifestyle, 2) Food, 3) Food allergies and sensitivities, and 4) Dietary supplements for adrenal fatigue.  

I went home and followed Dr. Gabhart’s direction. I pulled my copy off the shelf and reread the above section. It made me realize just how HUGE the impact of stress is in our lives.

If you care about yourself, if you want to preserve your adrenal health so that as you age your adrenals can take care of you, you’ll do what Dr. Gabhart recommends: “I want you to go home and read this book.”

This entry was posted on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 7:31 am and is filed under Hormone Balancing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.