Dr. Tabatha, an OB/GYN and functional medicine doctor, explains how chronic stress triggers adrenal dysfunction that drives weight gain in women over 40 and worsens menopause symptoms. Chronic gut infections, viruses like Epstein-Barr, and dental problems are often overlooked stressors that spike cortisol and adrenaline, causing inflammation and metabolic problems.
Hi, I'm Dr. Tabitha the Gutsy Gynecologist. I'm a triple board certified, OB, GYN and Functional Medicine physician. I've embraced the world of functional medicine and wellness through my own personal health journey. And I'm super excited to share my wisdom and unique perspective as it pertains to women's health. After caring for thousands of women, I've come to realize that your gut health determines your gyne health and your overall health. And it's a super gutsy thing for me to go against conventional gynecology practice to bring you the truth. No more band aid medicine, ladies. We're talking root cause resolution on this show. So if you're struggling with hormone imbalance, weight gain, period issues, anxiety, insomnia, you name it, then you've come to the right place. And I want to be your gutsy gynecologist. So welcome. Every single day in my virtual medical practice, I diagnose adrenal dysfunction. That is when chronic emotional, mental or physical stressors cause your adrenal glands to no longer be able to produce cortisol in an appropriate amount at an appropriate time. It might be making too much over a 24 hour period or at the wrong time, it might not be making enough. And your other adrenal hormones, DHEA was which is your anti aging, keep you young and healthy hormone or adrenaline, epinephrine, Those are your, you know what adrenaline is like. The most obvious is if you're on a roller coaster. That chemical is also created out of your adrenal glands during stressful times. It might not be to the same amount and level as when you ride a roller coaster, but it's being created on a daily basis when you're stressed out. And that has a huge impact on your entire body. Because chronically overproduction of adrenaline and cortisol cause inflammation, inflammation inside the cells and inflammation is destructive. So a little bit of cortisol acutely is actually a good thing and can help us heal. But chronic excess long term, that is destructive. It causes our tissues to break down and not be able to heal. And they actually it's a setup for the creation of disease, of metabolic derangement. That's the fancy medical term that happens inside the cells and that's what creates cancers and diabetes and all of these things. So it's really important for you to understand this and figure out where your stress is coming from so you can get control of it. It's not always coming from our life. You know, I know my life was causing my stress. I Was an OB GYN in a small town on call most nights, very sleep deprived, very high stress, job, life or death situations at a moment's notice. You might not have that. You might tell me, Dr. Tabitha, my life is great. I am not stressed at all. So I couldn't possibly have adrenal dysfunction causing my premature menopause or my gut issues or my autoimmune thyroid issues. But you might be wrong because there are things happening inside your body that can cause chronic stress and be just as taxing to the adrenals and create adrenal dysfunction. The most common thing is chronic gut issues. If you have an overgrowth of bad bacteria or yeast or parasites that have just like gone on for months and months and months. Months. And you don't really know about it because you've just learned to live with this little bit of indigestion or irregular bowels or constipation. You've just learned how to ignore it or get over it. That is still very taxing on your adrenals. That could be a leading to adrenal dysfunction, chronic teeth issues, chronic viruses like Epstein Barr where you just feel tired. Like I'm just tired all the time. Somebody diagnosed me with chronic fatigue five years ago and I just learned to live with it. I live on tons of supplements and I get through. Well, that is very taxing to the adrenals and that will cause adrenal dysfunction right there. And when it all comes down to is chronic cortisol, chronic adrenaline production, it's destructive, but it also is the major cause of weight gain in women north of 40, so and premature menopause and severe menopause symptoms. So if your menopausal symptoms are really bad, it could be because you have adrenal dysfunction. Did you know your adrenals are your backup ovaries? So our ovaries make estrogen, progesterone and testosterone all through your reproductive years. Then when your ovaries are running out of eggs and they're no longer ovulating and releasing an egg every month, they get to a point where they're done and your ovaries shut down permanently. That is menopause. They are no longer producing sex hormones to any substantial level. So you no longer grow the lining of your uterus and have a period. You are no longer fertile, you no longer ovulate. So we rely on our adrenal glands for our sex hormones for the remainder of our life. Because dhea, that amazing anti aging keep us young and healthy hormone gets converted into estrogen and testosterone. So if we aren't making enough DHEA and we go into menopause, our sex hormones will be even lower than, than they're supposed to because we don't have any backup hormone production from our adrenal glands. So that's why I call adrenals the backup ovaries. They are supposed to kick in at the time of menopause and give you enough hormones so you don't have such severe menopausal symptoms. So typically, women who have worse menopausal symptoms who really, really struggle, either they had surgical menopause, meaning they went into the operating room, had their ovaries removed and woke up with no hormone production anymore, then you need to rely on your adrenal glands, or if you lost your ovary function due to chemo or radiation, or you're on estrogen blockers to prevent breast cancer, things like that. Or you've just gone into natural menopause, you need to rely on those adrenal glands. So if your adrenals aren't working, you're going to be hurting. So I hope that makes sense. But if you really want to figure out and understand why this affects your weight, because I will tell you, stress causes weight gain. I go into all of this in chapter five of Fast to Faith. So just get the book, go straight to chapter five, change your physiology. And I'm going to explain how weight gain comes from chronic stress. And like I said, it doesn't have to be life stress. You could have a great life, but you might have some physical stressors that are happening. And gut health is a big one. So I talk about leaky gut. I help you understand all that, and I explain the inflammatory cascade and the different branches of the immune system, the ige, the igg, the I, the igm, all of those in a really easy to understand way. I relate them to the military so that you can easily get a grasp on, ah, this sounds like me. Or no, I don't think that's it. Maybe I need to go on and read, you know, go back to chapter four, chapter five and see, is it my thyroid or is it something else going on? And that's why I can't release the weight. So I hope that you get so much out of this book. I've really poured my heart and soul into it to bring you all the information in a easy to read form that you can keep going back to. Like get the paper copy so that you can underline stuff, you can dog ear the page, you can go back because this information is invaluable. I spent 20 plus years learning this and gaining all of this experience so that I could bring it to you. So it's an awesome resource. Go get Fast to Faith and then go to fast faith.com, put your order number in and get all of the bonuses because I want to see you in the live Zoom call that I'm doing just for people who buy the book. Okay. Yay. I'm super excited. Let me know if this resonates with you. If it's one of your golden nuggets. Like, yes, I finally understand. I figured this piece out. Thank you so much. And here's the cool thing. The book has the tools and the solutions to shift all of this. So you're not just going to understand why you're struggling. I'm going to give you the tools to overcome it and to shift your health and to finally love your body and feel amazing in it because it's going to get back to its natural, healthy state. Okay, Go have an amazing week. I will see you soon.
