Steve Yap
DO YOU struggle to get up in the morning, not hearing your alarm going off, or often skip breakfast after you get
up late?
During the day, do you have difficulty focusing on the tasks at hand? Or do you find your working hours rather long and often miss out on social life, with hardly any time to engage in planned exercise?
If so, you may be suffering from adrenal insufficiency, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome. This is a condition where the adrenal hormone, cortisol, may be well below the normal reference range.
Here are some natural therapies proposed for reversing this disorder:
► Reduce strong coffee/tea or alcohol consumption since stimulants could adversely affect your night sleep.
► Reduce consumption of food high in salt and refined carbohydrates/sugar, especially if your blood pressure is higher than 130/90.
► Take on a more positive approach towards life such as developing a sense of humour and enjoying laughter.
► Aim for seven hours of sleep to avoid the risk of getting overweight or diabetes.
► Have breakfast before leaving for work in order to replenish your waning glycogen (stored energy) supply typical of those suffering from low adrenal output.
► Raise intake of quality protein such as soy isolate, egg white, fish, and white meat while avoiding canned or processed food from fast-food chains. Protein is a rich source of phosphorous, which is the crucial substance in energy production.
► Add magnesium-rich food to your diet such as alkaline cocoa, dark chocolate, nuts (especially almonds), seeds, roasted soybeans, spinach and all-bran cereals.
► Add virgin coconut oil to your cooking since this oil is known to improve metabolism and raise energy levels.
► Take in adequate food sources of pantothenic acid (vitamin B5) such as egg yolk, broccoli, fish, shellfish, chicken, legumes, mushrooms, avocado, royal jelly, and sweet potatoes.
► Eat an antioxidant-rich diet while staying low on refined carbohydrates/sugar and deep-fried food.
► Also, complex carbohydrate from vegetables, lentils, nuts, seeds, and beans could offer sustained energy in conditions of hypoadrenia (weak adrenal function).
Nutraceuticals and herbs prescribed by nutritional therapists to treat chronic fatigue syndrome are complex and should be taken only with their supervision.
They include:
► Gensenosides which is effective against mental stress and could normalise adrenal fatigue;
► Zinc citrate which activates over a hundred enzymes, increases testosterone production to help improve mental focus and concentration, and reduces aromatisation of testosterone to estradiol (in males);
► Magnesium citrate which activates the adrenal since over 300 bodily enzymes require the presence of magnesium ions for their catalytic action, including all enzymes using or synthesising ATP, which is the main energy source in cells;
► Iodine which reduces risk of hypothyroidism, which could lead to gaining weight;
► Ascorbic acid which is essential to the adrenal hormone cascade;
► Licorice (glycyrrhizin) which may treat Addison’s disease (the most serious stage of adrenal fatigue); and
► Vitamin B5 which is used for energy production from fats, carbohydrates, and protein. It is converted to acetyCoA, which adrenal cells require in higher quantities compared to other body cells. Low CoA levels could cause symptoms of irritability, fatigue, and apathy.
Besides physical and mental symptoms, chronic fatigue syndrome may be diagnosed from collective blood markers such as cortisol, DHEA-S, free testosterone, hs-CRP and HbA1c.
Unfortunately, the ‘normal’ range for adrenal function on standard blood/urine tests is too wide to be highly useful since they do not correlate with hormone levels inside the cells. Saliva hormone testing is preferred since it indicates the amount of hormone inside cells. Furthermore, test results can fluctuate throughout the day.
According to Wilson (2001), the collective low scores at the start for levels of cortisol, testosterone and DHEAS were rather indicative of chronically-decreased adrenal function.
http://www.thesundaily.my/news/901120
