Are You Suffering From Adrenal Dysfunction?

Hey, everybody, it's Dr. Mark Hyman. Welcome to my weekly house call. Your chance to ask me your questions. In this week's video, we're going to talk about adrenal fatigue. Now, it's a big topic. Most people don't know what it is or have confusion about it. But I'm going to tell you what I've learned over 20 years of medical practice. So let's get to the question. What is your recommended protocol for treating adrenal fatigue? So really glad you asked this question, Steve, because I get this question all the time and it's really not talked about enough. So here's the deal. Adrenal fatigue is basically a hot button topic in medicine because traditional doctors believe that your adrenals work or they don't. They're either high or they're low. There's no kind of in between. So low is called Addison's disease, high is called Cushing's disease. And these are extreme versions of adrenal dysfunction. I just an interview for the Today show where she was asking about adrenal fatigue and adrenal insufficiency. Adrenal dysfunction, there's a whole bunch of names for it, and most physicians just don't believe it's a real thing. But I referred her to an article in the New England Journal number of years ago by Bruce McEwen talking about this range of dysfunction that can happen with the adrenal glands from chronic stress. And it can be a physical stress, like an infection or a toxin or or it can be an emotional stress or mental stress. So the bad news is, with all the stresses we're exposed to, whether it's lack of sleep, whether it's poor diet, whether it's because, by the way, sugar jacks up your adrenals and causes stress on them, whether it's environmental toxins, whether it's chronic infections, whether it's chronic unremitting stress, all these things affect our adrenal function. So I would say it's adrenal dysfunction. It's not necessarily insufficiency. It's not a true quote disease. But most people don't even know they're suffering from this. And your adrenal glands are so important because they help your body to respond to stress and they also help balance your blood sugar and they help balance your fluid balance. So if you have chronic stress in your life of any kind, your adrenals get beaten up and your energy tends to go down, you get fatigue. And that causes a number of symptoms. Trouble sleeping, you can get tired and wired. So basically you can lay down in bed and feel exhausted, but can't fall asleep. You get cravings for salt mostly and also sweet foods. You get palpitations, you might feel dizzy when you stand up. And the first step to dealing with these symptoms is to actually start with relaxation. Your body's begging you to slow down and reset. And things like meditation, yoga, hot baths, saunas, gentle exercise, naps all can help you reset. The next thing is to eat a diet that can help balance your adrenal glands. If you eat a lot of sugar, you're going to get in trouble. If you eat a processed diet, your adrenals are not going to be happy. So get a whole foods plant based diet with lots of healthy fats and good quality proteins. And when I say plant based, I don't mean only vegetarian or vegan. I mean the pegan diet. Definitely do not skip any meals. Skipping meals is a bad habit for a lot of people with adrenal dysfunction because they can't recover and it makes symptoms worse. So stay away also from caffeine, which pushes your adrenals to release cortisol adrenaline, but then it poops out. Sugar also causes the release of cortisol, adrenaline and also insulin. So all those things can be harmful. And alcohol, which makes you feel relaxed in the minute but actually causes problems in cortisol, poor immunity, increased inflammation, sleep issues. So if you're having trouble with any of those symptoms, I recommend you cut out caffeine and alcohol. I also recommend you add a number of supplements that can help support your adrenals, vitamins and minerals. Just a good multivitamin, vitamin C, zinc, B complex, even with B5. Some herbs that can be helpful like Siberian ginseng, rhodiola, cordyceps, and these are great herbs that help balance your adrenal and stress response. Ashwagandha. That's an ayurvedic herb and that can help calm an overactive stress response, improve sleep. All these things are really great to use together to help your body recover. So if you're worried about your adrenal stress response or if you've been told that you have adrenal burnout, the good news is you can fix it pretty easily without a lot of medical intervention. But you need to follow the steps that I outlined and I encourage you to hit your pause button and learn to relax naturally. A few vitamins and herbs you can try. Make sure you're eating plenty of good food and not the bad food and you will feel better and if you're not, you probably should go see a functional medicine doc, like one of the docs at our clinic, the Ultra Wellness center, or functional medicine doc near you. All right, that's all the time we have for today. If you like this video, be sure to share it with your friends and family on Facebook and Twitter. And if you have any questions, you can tweet them to me or send your video submissions to Dr.hyman.com and maybe next week I'll make a house call to you. So thanks for watching.