Adrenal Glands Need Antioxidants and Nourishment

We're going to talk about your adrenal glands and because they deal with stress all the time, right? They're dealing with stress every single day of your life. So let's talk about this is from wellness resources and this is adrenal glands need antioxidants and nourishment. So why is that? Let's chat. All right. So, um, let's talk about first, um, your nutrient reserves and how they affect the function of your adrenal glands. Because at the end of the day, of course, you know, this show is primarily about nutrition. We're talking about how nutrition affects your body, right? Your nutritional reserves affect the function of your adrenal glands and your hormone production. But what happens is when you run empty, it places a greater strain on your body itself and also your risk of adrenal hormone dysregulation. Okay. So what we want to do is put the right fuel in to get your adrenal glands, you know, running properly and to manage the day-to-day stresses of life. What are some of the adrenal hormone effects? Okay. So adrenal hormones affect all aspects of your health, including your bone density, your carbohydrate and blood sugar metabolism, your weight management, your immune regulation and inflammation control, your muscle and collagen strength, your mucosal lining integrity of your gut and respiratory track, your toxin clearance, your pancreatic function and insulin production, your ovarian and testosterone function, your thyroid gland and its hormone function, brain health, memory, learning and sleep mood and nerve integrity. I mean, that's, I mean, that's pretty much everything if you really think about it. Okay. So let's talk about some of the symptoms when you are under adrenal stress, because remember, again, when we're getting hit by that stress, this is where adrenals really have to start secreting things and start having to deal with it, right? An imbalance of adrenal hormones may lead to fatigue, weakness, feeling anxious, irritable, apprehensive, depressed, confused, or frustrated, and even lightheaded. You may experience tightness in your neck and shoulders, muscles. You may be sensitive to alcohol, multiple food sensitivities, okay? Have difficulties with blood sugar regulation, appetite, and body temperature control. You also may get heart flutter, right? A lot of people, you know, they can call it heart flutter. Some people call it atrial fibrillation, especially if you get very agitated. There's some people that get the heart flutter when they get agitated. Okay. Even alternating bowel symptoms of diarrhea, constipation, these types of things, all of these types of things. And there's many more can be symptoms of adrenal exhaustion or, you know, just, you know, adrenal stress. Okay. So we have to do everything we can to mitigate that. Now let's talk about the adrenal gland. So we're going to get into anatomy a little bit, just so we can kind of, you can understand, you can have a frame of reference of the adrenal glands and how important they are in this whole business that we call stress. Okay. So you have two adrenal glands that are located at the tops of your kidneys. Okay. And those glands are part of what's called your endocrine system, and they produce many types of different hormones in your body. Okay. So there's two different types of the gland itself. Okay. That's the outer adrenal cortex. And then there's the inner portion called the adrenal medulla. Okay. So we're going to talk about each one. So the adrenal cortex, again, secretes different types of hormones, especially your sex steroid hormones. Okay. So inside the adrenal gland cortex, you have vitamin B5 or pantothene, which we're going to talk about in a few minutes that converts into acetyl CoA. Okay. Or acetyl Coenzyme A basically. Right. And with your body's natural cholesterol makes the sex steroid hormones. It makes DHEA. It makes testosterone. It makes estradiol. It makes progesterone, all these different types of sex hormones. Okay. So extremely important. Your adrenals are extremely important in this. And again, cholesterol is also intimately involved in this. And this is why, you know, I'm not going to get into it today, but this is why cholesterol is so important for, again, hormone production and so many different types of repair functions in your body. And of course we know that cholesterol gets demonized all the time, but it is a part of this process. Next we also have cortisol. Okay. So the same cholesterol pathway is also used to make the glucocorticoids. Okay. Like cortisol, cortisol regulates protein, fats, and carbohydrates, blood sugar. Okay. Metabolism inhibits immune system inflammation and also regulates your blood pressure. Okay. Another thing that also helps to regulate blood pressure, something called aldosterone. That's another one that is secreted by that part of the adrenals as well. And it also, it's also again, works in that cholesterol pathway that makes them, it makes the minimal corticoid called aldosterone. Now aldosterone is directly involved with long term blood pressure regulation and sodium and potassium and electrolyte balance. Okay. So low levels of aldosterone contribute to low blood pressure and difficulties holding fluids and electrolytes. And this is where we see like high levels of aldosterone contribute to increased blood pressure. And also a big thing that happens with that is fluid retention. So if you're having issues with aldosterone or if you're having kidney issues in general, you may see a lot, your blood pressure may be elevated, you know, you know, chronically, but you also will start seeing, you also may start seeing fluid retention, especially in the ankles and, you know, different areas of the body and these types of things. These are things to watch out for. Okay. Now the other piece of the adrenals is called the adrenal medulla. Okay. That is the innermost portion. Okay. And this area produces the catecholamine hormones called adrenaline and noradrenaline or what we call epinephrine, right? Epinephrine basically. Okay. That these are the, these are the hormones that respond to immediate stress. Okay. So literally they respond in real time to immediate stress. These hormones cause the heart to beat faster. They bring oxygen to the muscles. This is what shuttles the blood to your muscles, gives you that fight or flight response. Okay. It also deals with blood sugar as well, you know, and raising blood sugar and all these different types of things. But again, this is your, this is that fight or flight part of your, of your nervous system basically. Okay. So, you know, the catecholamines are intimately involved in this process. Now, this is what typically we see, especially in mainstream health. This is what we see the use of the beta blocker. Okay. So people who are chronically stressed or people who have, you know, an issue with chronic high blood pressure, many times they are prescribed the beta blocker. Now, what is a beta blocker? The beta blocker, what does it do? So, so basically when you have your catecholamines that are released, you have a sympathetic response, right? So let's say you have a fight or flight happening. You're, you're anxious, you're nervous, or whatever the case may be, right? You have the secretion of catecholamines from the, you know, from the kidneys, right? From the adrenals, right? Basically. Okay. And then it goes through this conversion process, through the respiratory system, through the ACE2 receptor. And then basically what they do is they act on your heart. Okay. So this hormone acts on your heart and on your heart, you have what's called beta adrenergic receptors. And what these catecholamines do is they act on those beta adrenergic receptors to make the heart pump faster. This is what gives you that fast heart rate response when you have the, when you have the stress response or the fight or flight. Okay. So what does a beta blocker do? A beta blocker is designed to mitigate or slow down or stop that stress response from acting on the, on the beta adrenergic receptors. Okay. So just so you can kind of understand what a beta blocker does, just, just kind of a general summary of a beta blocker, but that's, you know, kind of catecholamines and what they do and how they affect your stress response. Now also free radicals and oxidative stress. The adrenal, the adrenal glands are rich in lipids, cholesterol proteins, and vast amounts of mitochondria, which are needed for their energy intensive work. Okay. But during the production of these hormones, they also, it's also generate, they also generate free radicals. Okay. So you also get these reactive oxygen species that happen as well. Okay. So you have to remember that when things happen in your body, there's again, as I say, there's a cause and effect relationship, right? When things are generated, sometimes stress is generated and then you have oxidation that's generated or reactive oxygen species that generate. So this is where you want to start to get the antioxidants on board to try to kind of mitigate that and to kind of, you know, bring that down a little bit. Okay. Let's look at some adrenal gland stresses. So obviously the stress itself, right? Or your perception, right? Anger, fear, worry, guilt, anxiety, depression, overwork, excessive strain. Other stresses include infection, illness, surgery, trauma, injury, acute and severe pain, even excessive exercise or extreme temperatures or extreme travel. All these things can be stressors to the body. Okay. And to the adrenal glands. Okay. Also, when we look at diet, diet can be extremely stressful to the adrenal glands, diet, high in sugar, obviously ultra processed foods, skipping meals or dietary extremes, right. Going from, you know, meat eater to, you know, to vegan in a day, you know, those types of things, those can impact the adrenals, also impact hormone production. Keep that in mind. And also in addition to that, then we have the environmental toxins, right? So we have the PCBs and the, all the BPAs and the bisphenols and all these types of things that the plastics and the stuff that's in the air. And, you know, you name it, there's a million things out there that we're dealing with. All that can also be disruptive and be stressful to the adrenals, including also medications. There are medications out there that can also cause a adrenal response, including even some cancer therapies, right. They can also disrupt adrenal function. Okay. Again, these are just side effects of those types of therapies. So how do we protect your adrenal glands from oxidative stress? Several nutrients in particular are important. We want to take a look at, you know, the top choices, vitamin C, vitamin C is crucial here. Vitamin C is essential for adrenal glands for the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis that I've talked about on this show, as well as the management of oxidative stress. Next vitamin E critically supports and maintains healthy adrenal gland hormone levels. It provides essential antioxidant support to mitochondria to protect cell membranes, lipids, and other antioxidants like vitamin C within the glands. Okay. We also want to have optimal glutathione because it is required to manage lipid peroxidation or basically oxidation of fat and oxidative stress in the adrenal glands. Also the B vitamins, B vitamins and several other nutrients are essential. B vitamins are huge also for, you know, dealing with stress. B vitamins definitely help you deal with stress. Absolutely. And then we have even herbs, right? The adaptogens are very good with dealing with stress. So we have holy basil, we have rhodiola rosea, we have cordyceps, we have ashwagandha, all these types of adaptogens are great for helping you deal with all different types of stress. So these are what we, what we need to look at. So obviously we want to lower the stress as much as we can do whatever we can mentally to lower the stress and then to make sure that we have enough of the nutrition to deal with it. So we don't get into burnout, right? So if you want to take a look at some supplements that I recommend, obviously I always check out wellness resources supplements because they have some specific ones that deal with this. You can take a look at their adrenal helper is very good, specifically deals with the adrenal that has B vitamins, all great stuff in there. You can take a look at pantothene. Okay. Which is a specific one. Also, you can take a look at stress helper. Okay. Another top choice is daily protector eye and immune, because that's going to help to deal with the oxidative stress. It's loaded with antioxidants. We also have glutathione ultra, and then we have super co Q10. So those, those are the top choices from wellness resources that I would recommend in dealing with stressful environments and just stress overall. But again, we want to do everything we can to mitigate the stress and to deal with it because that's all we can do because again, stress can wreak havoc in many different ways in your body. And the more we can do that and you have to make it as part of your program. Okay. Cause I can talk about diet. I can talk about you know, supplements. I could talk about getting good sleep. I could talk about exercising until I'm blowing the face, but if you are not also managing stress, then you are still, you know, that's a, that's a crucial piece. That's going to wreak havoc on your body. Okay. And when you do all those things, they're not going to work as well. If you're dealing with just, I know it because I'm again, I'm a, I'm a guy who has dealt with anxiety in his life, especially as a young kid. And, um, there was a lot of, um, there was a lot of, uh, what I could say, you know, blowback from that in my body itself. I dealt with a lot of symptoms because of that. Right. So, uh, you know, I did everything I could include yoga and stress reduction and meditation and nutrients. And I kind of made a comprehensive package for myself to help to deal with stress, you know, to help with deal with anxiety. And again, I'm not perfect by any means, nobody's asking you to be perfect, but just do everything you can to, you know, keep it at a minimum. That is the key. Okay.