How Does The Adrenal Thyroid Connection Affect You?
If the adrenal thyroid connection sounds too complicated and you just want help with losing weight or gaining energy, don’t stop reading now!
Today we are going to look at how these two important glands work together and how one can interfere with the other in keeping your energy up and your metabolism working at a good healthy pace.
Help for your low energy, weight gain, lack of sleep and trouble thinking could mean helping your body work in harmony again. Take a look…
Are you always tired, no matter how much sleep you get? Do you feel like your brain is in a fog? Are you cold when others aren’t? Do you find that you can’t lose or keep weight off despite dieting? You may be suffering from a thyroid deficiency, or hypothyroidism and adrenal fatigue.
Your thyroid gland is like your body’s gas pedal. When it’s cruising at the right speed, you feel great. But when it’s not “giving enough gas” – or not producing enough thyroid hormone – you feel like you’re driving in slow motion with one foot on the brake pedal.
But many hypothyroid symptoms are so similar to adrenal fatigue that the two are often confused or misdiagnosed.
On top of this confusion, tests for thyroid and adrenal problems are often difficult to interpret correctly. Some doctors believe that even if you had low thyroid function, it could be adrenal stress causing the problem to begin with.
What Role Do The Adrenal Glands Have With Proper Thyroid Function?
The adrenals are your “life saving” organs because they control your body’s hormones and help you survive in stressful situations. They act as control organs for your “fight or flight” response and secrete many of our most important hormones including: pregnenolone, adrenaline, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA and cortisol.
When your adrenals are constantly stressed, this sets off an autoimmune, inflammatory response in your entire body. The adrenal-hypothalamus-pituitary feedback loop regulates the secretion of cortisol. All of your organs and your immunity are impacted negatively by the resulting constant assault of cortisol. Low adrenal function can actually cause someone’s thyroid problem to be much worse than it would be otherwise. – Holtorf Medical Group
How Adrenal Stress Can Inhibit Thyroid And What To Do About It
In the excerpt below we see just one of several ways that adrenal stress can inhibit your thyroid function.
There is also advice to help you prevent or improve adrenal fatigue.
Chronic Adrenal Stress can affect the cells ability to utilize thyroid hormone
Just like blood glucose, circulating levels of hormones in the blood are relatively useless until they get inside of the cell. One study took the serum of individuals to cell cultures and found that the group of individuals who were stressed showed a decreased ability of uptake of thyroid hormone inside the cell, while the non-stressed group showed a normal uptake. Another study found that significant physiological stress was associated with up to a 79% reduction in tissue levels of T4 and T3 without a rise in TSH
What are some things you can do to prevent adrenal fatigue?
For those with adrenal related issues it is better to eat smaller meals more frequently throughout the day never go more than 3 hours without eating
Be sure to have your laboratory tests run by your doctor to check for any chemical related stressors like the ones listed at the beginning of this article.
Avoid inflammatory food, and other common adrenal stressors like: caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, or sugar
Stress tends to use up our B-vitamin stores, so taking a good quality B-vitamin can help with recovery
Adaptogenic herbs and botanicals can help hasten the recovery as well – Integrative Brain and Body
Do you think you are dealing with adrenal fatigue?