By Dr. Linda J. Dobberstein, DC, Board Certified in Clinical Nutrition
Article Highlights:
• Chronic stress can lead to adrenal hormone imbalance, causing fatigue, weight gain, and other health issues.
• Antioxidants and adaptogens help protect the adrenal glands and support hormone production.
• A whole foods diet and stress management are essential for maintaining healthy adrenal gland function.
Do you feel fatigued and worn down, wired at night, have difficulty coping with things, or have weight gain around the belly? Has your life been one stressful event after another leaving you feeling burned out?
Your nutritional reserves affect the function of your adrenal glands and hormone production. When you run on empty, it places a great strain on your body and risk for adrenal hormone dysregulation. Putting in the right fuel for your adrenal glands is a top priority to manage modern day demands!
Adrenal Hormone Effects
Adrenal hormones affect all aspects of your health, including:
• bone density
• carbohydrate and blood sugar metabolism
• weight management
• immune regulation and inflammation control
• muscle and collagen strength
• mucosal lining integrity of your gut and respiratory tract
• toxin clearance
• pancreatic function and insulin production
• ovarian and testosterone function
• thyroid gland and its hormone function
• brain health, memory, learning
• sleep, mood, and nerve integrity
Symptoms of Adrenal Stress
An imbalance of adrenal hormones may lead to fatigue, weakness, feeling anxious, irritable, apprehensive, depressed, confused, or frustrated, light-headedness, dizziness upon standing, blood pressure irregularities, and craving sweets or salt.
You may experience tightness in your neck and shoulder muscles, be sensitive to alcohol, have multiple food sensitivities, have difficulties with blood sugar regulation, appetite, and body temperature control.
You may feel your heart flutter, have alternating bowel symptoms with diarrhea and constipation, have trouble sweating, hair loss, difficulty maintaining muscle mass, bone density, immune vitality, and other symptoms.
Adrenal Glands
You have two adrenal glands that are located above the kidneys. The adrenal glands are part of the endocrine system as they produce many types of hormones. There are two parts to the gland, the outer adrenal cortex and inner portion called the adrenal medulla.
Adrenal Cortex Hormones: Sex Steroid Hormones
Inside the adrenal gland cortex, vitamin B5/pantethine converts into Acetyl CoA and with your body’s natural cholesterol make the sex steroid hormones DHEA, testosterone, estradiol, estriol, and progesterone.
Cortisol
This same cholesterol pathway is also used to make glucocorticoids like cortisol. Cortisol regulates protein, fat, and carbohydrate/blood sugar metabolism, inhibits immune system inflammation, and regulates blood pressure.
Aldosterone
The cholesterol pathway also makes the mineral-corticoid hormone called aldosterone. Aldosterone is directly involved with long-term blood pressure regulation and sodium and potassium electrolyte balance.
Low levels of aldosterone contribute to low blood pressure and difficulties holding onto fluids and electrolytes, whereas high levels of aldosterone contribute to increased blood pressure and fluid retention. This area is highly vulnerable to immune attack and precedes changes with cortisol levels.
Adrenal Medulla
The adrenal medulla is the inner portion of the adrenal gland. This area produces the catecholamine hormones called adrenaline/noradrenaline or epinephrine/norepinephrine that respond to immediate stress.
These hormones cause your heart to beat faster, bring oxygen to muscles, increase blood pressure and blood sugar, allowing your body to “fight”. They also increase your attention and focus, wake you up, and enhance the brain’s ability to make memories. Adrenaline engages the “fight-flight” sympathetic autonomic nervous system.
Free Radicals and Oxidative Stress
The adrenal glands are rich in lipids, cholesterol, proteins, and vast amounts of mitochondria which are needed for their energy intensive work. During the production of adrenal hormones, reactive oxygen species (ROS) and other free radicals occur creating oxidative stress within the adrenal glands.
In response to excessive stress and cortisol levels, more ROS and other free radicals within cells are released adding to adrenal gland cellular stress. Lipids, proteins, and DNA in the adrenal glands become damaged and antioxidant stores in the adrenal glands and throughout your body become depleted. Over an extended period without relief from stress and nutritional replenishment, this causes diminished production of your adrenal hormones.
Adrenal Gland Stressors
Stressors that affect the adrenal gland and hormone production include anger, fear, worry, anxiety, guilt, depression, overwork, or excessive strain. Other stressors include infection or illness, surgery, trauma, injury, and acute or chronic severe pain. Excessive exercise, temperature extremes, allergies, shift work, travel, and other factors that disrupt circadian rhythms affect adrenal hormone production and oxidative stress levels.
A diet with high fat, high sugar, and ultra-processed foods, skipping meals, or dietary extremes disrupt adrenal gland architecture and impact hormone production. High stress environments with noise, temperature, lifestyles, environmental pollutants, and gut dysbiosis also contribute to nutritional depletions that stress your adrenal glands.
In addition, environmental chemicals or xenobiotics with PCBS, PFOS, BPAs/bisphenols, and carbon tetrachloride can interfere with the natural production of adrenal steroid hormones and contribute to oxidative stress. Methylmercury, cadmium, and lead are known to interfere with adrenal steroid hormones. Medications such as metyrapone, spironolactone, canrenone, and anticancer therapies, etc. also disrupt adrenal gland function.
A vicious cycle also occurs with high stress life events and hectic schedules. More oxidative stress and free radicals occur, destroying adrenal gland lipids, proteins, and DNA. This also depletes antioxidant defense mechanisms throughout your body making you age faster and contributing the symptoms above.
Protect Your Adrenal Glands from Oxidative Stress
Antioxidants are essential to maintain the internal integrity of your adrenal glands. Several nutrients are particularly important. Vitamin C is essential for the adrenal glands, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, and management of oxidative stress.
Vitamin E critically supports and maintains healthy adrenal gland hormone levels. It provides essential antioxidant support to mitochondria and protects cell membranes, lipids, and other antioxidants like vitamin C within the glands.
Optimal glutathione levels are also required to manage lipid peroxidation and oxidative stress in the adrenal glands. Other essential antioxidants include carotenes like beta-carotene, astaxanthin, lutein, zeaxanthin, lycopene, as well as selenium, zinc, magnesium, polyphenols/plant-based antioxidants, coenzyme Q10, and probiotics. B vitamins and several other nutrients are also essential for mitochondrial function.
Prized herbal adaptogens such as holy basil, rhodiola rosea, cordyceps, eleutherococcus, and ashwagandha are highly beneficial at modulating cortisol stress responses with the HPA axis (brain-adrenal connection). Adaptogens are especially helpful for moderating long-term stress effects and burnout.
A whole foods diet rich in colorful fruits, vegetables, beans, legumes, complex carbohydrates, proteins, and good fats are essential. Great antioxidant-rich and supportive adrenal foods include nuts and seeds, spinach, carrots, sweet potatoes, fish, oysters, beef and other grass-fed, pasture-raised animal proteins, citrus fruits, berries, peppers, green tea, dark chocolate (>70% cacao), yogurt, kefir, fermented vegetables, and other whole foods.
Avoid skipping meals, overeating, and eating foods you are intolerant of or allergic to. Take time to play. Get quality sleep time and rest. Enjoy positive relationships. Find other helpful ways to de-stress life and support your adrenal glands.
Lastly, it is vital to have adequate cholesterol in your body to make and maintain adrenal steroid hormones. Individuals with a total cholesterol level of less than 140 mg/dl will have greater difficulty making adrenal hormones as there isn’t enough of the compound for all the work.
Healthy adrenal glands require a vast concentration of antioxidants to compensate for the normal oxidative stress and free radicals made from its hormone production process. Even higher amounts of antioxidant support are required during times of acute or chronic unrelenting stress.
If your dream for health includes a 6-month long vacation on a beach to rest, now is the time to replenish the antioxidants for your adrenal glands. When they burn out, it can be a very long recovery. Provide support before you burn-out! Great options include Adrenal Helper, Pantethine or Stress Helper, Daily Protector Eye & Immune, Glutathione Ultra, and Super CoQ10.
