In this video Dr. A addresses common patient questions about the relationship between the thyroid and adrenal glands. He first explains the basic physiology of each gland—thyroid hormone as a cellular “time‑keeper” that sets metabolic rate and adrenal cortisol as a stress‑related hormone that follows a circadian rhythm. He then distinguishes between overt disease states (e.g., Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Addison’s or Cushing’s disease) and functional dysregulation, where hormone output is sufficient to avoid a diagnosable disease but sub‑optimal for optimal health. Dr. A highlights how treating one gland (e.g., increasing thyroid hormone) can place stress on the other, leading to symptoms such as fatigue, sleep disruption, or adrenal‑type complaints. He points out that conventional testing often detects disease but misses functional imbalances, which is why adrenal issues are less frequently discussed. The video concludes with an integrative, functional‑medicine approach: prioritize lifestyle hygiene (sleep, nutrition, stress management, movement) and consider supportive nutrients or herbs to gently restore adrenal function while treating thyroid issues, aiming to support both glands simultaneously and reduce the need for high‑dose pharmacologic interventions. The video ends with standard YouTube calls to action.
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Thyroid and adrenal connections, 5 key factors. I'm Dr. A, and I talk about integrative, naturopathic, and other types of healthcare issues that you have questions about. And boy, do we get a lot of questions about this one. So, let's dive into today's topic. When we think about the thyroid, many people have heard of thyroid problems, whether it's thyroiditis, like a Hashimoto's disease, or primary hypothyroidism, where you might take some thyroid hormone, or maybe even a hyperthyroid, where you have too much. And less often we hear about adrenal problems. And one of the things, and one of the bunch of questions that we got after we did some thyroid content was, don't these 2 things talk to each other? Meaning the thyroid and then your adrenal glands. So, your adrenal glands sit kind of on top of your kidneys, thyroid sits down here in your throat, and the thyroid obviously makes thyroid hormones, and then the adrenals make the adrenal hormone. So, The first thing to consider is what do they do and why would they have some connection? Really, bottom line, thyroid sets your basic metabolic rate, meaning thyroid hormone goes to your cells and through one means or another, through the mitochondria, it sets the speed of the mitochondria acting and the speed at which that you make energy for your cells. Well, it also goes inside and it goes to the nucleus and it sets the DNA turnover and other things that the nucleus does. So it literally is a sort of a timekeeper for the cells. Then what do the adrenal hormones do? Well, they do a bunch of things because there's more than one adrenal hormone, but the famous one we hear about is cortisol. Now cortisol is used normally through the day. We get a big surge of it in the morning. It helps to wake our brain up. And then at night it kind of goes down and that helps to calm our brain down. But also if we get under stress, we release cortisol. Also cortisol is a stress hormone, et cetera. People, when they were writing in, were asking, can I have one of these hormonal production areas affect another? And the answer is yes. So sometimes what will happen is you will see that a person may have an aggravation in one area, thyroid or adrenal, and they go to a doctor and they get that worked on and tested. Fixed, and then the other area becomes a little less functional or maybe a little more random. Now, I want to get into testing and why they're different, but the bottom line is, is that affecting one of them therapeutically or by a disease can affect the other one. And that is an important balance to remember. Now, most of the time what happens is we get thyroid problems tested more rare in the disease state, certainly not in the functional problem state, but in the disease state. So, we'll kind of dive into the effect of one on another. But, the big thing is, why do I hear so much about thyroid and not so much about adrenals? And, a lot of that goes back to testing. And so, testing and pathologies or diseases. So, with the thyroid, we have very common diseases, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, super common. Primary hypothyroid, pretty common. Hyperthyroid, high thyroid states, less common but still You know, it's out there. With adrenal problems, you have too much and too little. So high and low states, Addison's and Cushing's disease. You also can get some other syndromes that go along with it and then a couple of cancers. But those things are more rare. They do not happen as commonly. So often the reason that we don't talk about it, you don't hear about adrenal stuff, is because unless you had Addison's disease or Cushing's disease or an adrenal cancer or some other diagnosable concern, your doctor wouldn't talk about it and may not even go looking for it unless you had very particular types of symptoms. But, this is where the idea between a disease state and a functional derangement or a functional change in the operation of a gland comes into play. What I mean by that? Well, a disease state means Literally. Say, in the case of Hashimoto's thyroiditis, we have measurable amounts of antibodies. They are beating up on the thyroid and the thyroid is operating in an inappropriate way. We have very critical and well-laid-out disease categories for that. We go over to the adrenals and if your adrenal function is really, really low and certain tests are positive, we'll call it Addison's disease. Okay? But that's actually very It's much less common than a thyroid problem. But what if your adrenals are pumping out just enough cortisol, let's say, to keep you alive? Because without cortisol, you would not be alive. Let's say they're pumping out just enough to keep you alive and just enough so you don't have Addison's disease, but you don't really have enough to have a robust response if you have an inflammatory situation or a stressful situation or some other type of problem. Or what if I'm overproducing because of maybe a secondary cause like a chronic infection, but I don't have Cushing's I'm not overproducing that much. Well, there's a place in the middle between healthy and then a disease state, which we like to refer to as a functional problem. It is a dysfunction or a functional derangement. Now, it doesn't mean that it doesn't exist just because it doesn't have the diagnostic criteria. It just means that your, in this case, adrenal glands are not operating up to the normal speed that they ought to. Yes, they're doing enough so that you don't have a diagnosable disease, but no, they're not operating within the realm of, let's say, robust health for the adrenals. And this is why we so often hear about thyroid things, get them often fixed or worked on, and we rarely hear about adrenal things. Or if we do hear about adrenal things and it's a functional problem, might see the endocrinologist and they'll say, well, I checked your adrenal glands and you don't have one of these diseases that we're able to diagnose. And we don't, you know, we don't do functional here or dysfunctional. So, there is that sort of tension out there in the world, which you often get caught in the middle as a patient. Now, another common question, which kind of relates to all of this is, my doctor is trying to help me the best they can. And they were looking at my labs and I'm still tired. And they raised my thyroid. Basically. So, in trying to help you because your thyroid function is low, they give you more thyroid. A couple ways that can play out because of this back and forth between these 2 gland systems. Sometimes if I fix or help one of them, it actually puts a stress on the other one. Because what happens between the adrenal and thyroid systems is that if they're both working, they're backing each other up and they don't do the same things, but they have a lot of crossover that they do. If they're not working well, and let's say, for example, your thyroid starts to slip and it's going down because of hypothyroidism or maybe Hashimoto's autoimmune thyroiditis or whatever, your adrenals will have an increase in function temporarily. So, they'll try and back it up and vice versa. Okay? Now, they're not the same hormones. Obviously, they're not going to do the same thing, but they can help you feel like the ship is still, you know, kind of stable. But sometimes what'll happen is that that's been going on for a long time and then your doctor finds, oh gee, the thyroid is low. And you go in, you do treatment for 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 8 weeks, you get your labs retested and they say, gee, it's still low. Let me kick your dose up here. Sometimes people will get a rebound stress on the other organ, which in this case is the adrenals. And then you might start getting adrenal-type symptoms. Well, adrenal symptoms can cross over with thyroid stuff, They can actually make you feel more tired. Adrenal symptoms can also make you have a hard time sleeping or have a hard time sleeping appropriately because the adrenal hormones, some of them are involved in the circadian rhythm. And there's a whole bunch of other problems that can go on alongside of that. So normally what we do in the world of, let's say, integrative functional medicine, naturopathic physicians, the whole world of people is we do try to be cautious that yes, if we do find a problem here, and it's your thyroid. We do like to take a bigger picture look and say, okay, maybe you don't have a disease in your adrenals. Thank heaven you don't have that. But maybe you just have really low-functioning adrenals because they've been being beat up for a long time due to stress or any number of other things. That doesn't mean we have to give you drugs to treat that problem. It's a functional problem. It may simply indicate that what we need to do is to get you some hygienic measures, meaning get your sleep-wake cycles working correctly, get you eating correctly so that your blood sugar's not all over the place, get you moving your body, and then maybe do some basic nutrients or maybe some herbs or other things just to support the adrenals. Because again, they are not diseased at this point, they're just dysfunctional. And a dysfunctional organ is easier to kind of shepherd back into the fold than one that is completely, completely broken down. So to wrap this up, because these are the basic questions that we got, yes, thyroid can affect adrenals and vice versa. Yes, fixing or treating one can make the other one more stressed actually. And so often it's good to treat both of them. And then the third part about that is sometimes if I treat them both together, With whatever they need that's appropriate, then I don't need as much treatment for each one. I don't need as much thyroid going on, and I certainly don't need as much, you know, adrenal support as what's going on. And then the final thing is they can heal up. Now, getting people off of support for glandular things such as thyroid, et cetera, is a whole other topic. But they can heal up to the point where they're more functional. They work better, et cetera. So, that answers all of the questions we got around that particular part about the balance between thyroid and adrenal concerns. If you like this video, please like, share, and subscribe. Take a look at these other videos. We're going to post some videos around here on the screen. And, we also have a whole bunch of playlists over on the main YouTube channel where we keep all of our longer-form and medium and short-form videos. And I'd love to have you come over there and see it. I'm Dr. A, and I'll see you on the next video. Thank you.
