2.  Adrenal Fatigue: When you need a healthy diet and more.
 
Stress and Adrenal Fatigue Everyone has some degree of stress. Whether your stress comes from work, children, lifestyle or illness the effect and response of your body is the same. What differs is everyone’s degree of response and the ability to bounce back from acute and sometimes chronic stresses. Your adrenals manage: • The sympathetic “flight or fight” nervous system (epinephrine and norepinephrine) • Steroid hormone production • Aldosterone important for water control via potassium and sodium regulation Cortisol is secreted by the adrenals and is an essential response to illness and stress. It manages blood glucose, fat and protein metabolism, and inflammation and lymphatic function. Adrenal Testing and Treatments Cortisol salivary testing is a convenient way to assess cortisol circadian rhythm. A healthy cortisol circadiaum rhythm rises in the morning and slowly declines throughout the day. Various abnormalities can lead to variations in this normal cycle. Some people may present with low levels throughout the day, high levels throughout the day, or spikes in the evening preventing natural sleep cycles. Nutrition plays an important role in health and adrenal function. Vitamin C and B’s, and calcium are some nutrients necessary for proper adrenal function. A deficiency in B vitamins necessary for proper adrenal function can present, as symptoms like: • Leg cramps • Paresthesias • Insomnia • Depression • Fatigue Six ways to improve adrenal function: • Proper nutrition and deficiency replacement • Avoid foods that weaken the adrenals like refined sugars, high carbohydrate diet and caffeine • Keep a healthy body by removing food allergens and optimizing good gut health • Biannual cleansing programs • Sleep at the same time per night, and get at least 8 hours sleep • Light exercise programs with bursts of interval training **Seeking naturopathic care can provide testing for your adrenal function and treatments to get adrenal function normalized. Please call us for more information For more information see: http://www.sav.sk/journals/endo/full/er0201f.pdf http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/200 0/08/27/adrenals.aspxhttp://www.sav.sk/journals/endo/full/er0201f.pdfhttp://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/200shapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1
Newsletter Volume 1 Issue 3 June 15, 2008