Adrenal Health: A Direct Link to PTSD
Core endocrine features of PTSD include abnormal regulation of Cortisol and thyroid hormones.
Most individuals are aware of trauma’s effects on a person’s mental state--hyperarousal, reliving of traumatic events, avoidance--but not many are aware of the physical effects it takes on the body. During times of trauma, and the PTSD that may follow, an individual’s adrenal glands take a terrible toll. When the brain perceives a threat, the adrenals glands flood the body with adrenaline and cortisol hormones--our body’s natural “fight or flight” reaction. In individuals with PTSD, quite often military personal or first responders, this response happens over and over again, and this persistent state of hyperarousal can even lead to permanent neurological changes.
The adrenal system is responsible for processing stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline), and the brain monitors the amount of cortisol the body requires. Cortisol helps regulate the immune system, blood sugar, and tendencies towards depression. Individuals with current onset PTSD are stuck in a state of stress, producing stress hormones at higher than normal levels. Individuals that have suffered from PTSD for a longer period have resting lower cortisol levels than normal, often seen in advanced HPA-D (adrenal fatigue) where energy levels crash from reduced adrenal function. This causes one to feel exhausted, fatigue, and stress overload.
The adrenal glands not only help regulate the body’s reaction to stress, but also produce hormones that regulate many of the body’s major processes.
The stress hormones help increase energy, increase blood sugar levels, and speed up circulation and respiration to help the body survive through fight or flight. The sex hormones produced by the adrenals (estrogen, progesterone and testosterone) are all critical for growth, metabolism, strength, endurance, mental drive, menstrual function, and reproductive ability. With the body continually thrown into overdrive, a several hormonal imbalance can ensue, affecting any number of bodily systems.
Most Veteran’s Affairs (VA) Hospitals are now being staffed with individuals that are well-versed in PTSD, however, many still do not understand the role the adrenal glands play. The Western medical community does not recognize HPA-D as an accepted diagnosis, even though the adrenal fatigue symptoms are significant enough to impair a person’s life following the experience or trauma.
Symptoms of HPA-D include: slow morning starter, insomnia, crave salty foods, tendency to need sunglasses, bright lights at night bother eyes, tend to be keyed up/trouble calming down, become dizzy when standing up suddenly, experience “hangry” hungry and/or angry if meals are missed (hypoglycemia).
If you experience any of the above symptoms, a lab-based adrenal testing via saliva or DUTCH urine can be performed to determine a full panel work up of hormone imbalance. Then adequate healing protocols using supplementation, diet, and lifestyle changes should be considered.
Adrenal restoration tips:
- Stress management
- Get adequate sleep. 7‐8 hours of sleep beginning at 10:00 p.m. is much more restoring to the adrenals than 8 hours beginning at 1:00 a.m. Nap, if needed, but not enough to interfere with night sleep.
- Practice relaxation techniques: Breathing or skilled relaxation exercises, listen to relaxation recordings, meditate, biofeedback
- Accept nurturing and affection
- Laugh
- Search out counseling
- Work with a skilled functional medicine nutritionist who can test your HPA and adrenal glands and write effective bio individual protocols for healing.
Changes in diet can help too:
- Eat whole foods
- Avoid refined sugar
- Avoid alcohol
- Make sure you’re getting adequate protein
- Eliminate/reduce caffeine
- Avoid all allergic foods such as gluten, soy, corn which can weaken the system and can be an adrenal stressor
- Fasting and detoxification/cleansing diets should be avoided, at least initially
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Heidi Toy Functional Medicine Blog
Did you know most people didn’t have refrigerators in their homes until well into the 1900’s? It wasn’t even invented for large scale commercial use until the mid 1800’s [1]. So how did people keep their milk cold and make their food last longer? Fermentation. It sounds like a gross concept, because we often associate fermentation with a bad odor, but foods like cheese, yogurt, sauerkraut and pickles are all fermented foods. And those aren’t gross, are they? Well, some might disagree with me about sauerkraut, but that’s beside the point. Fermented foods are digestive aids. Microscopic living organisms in fermented foods help extend the food’s shelf life, enhance flavor, and help the body absorb minerals. These organisms pre-digest the food, getting rid of harmful components, and create more vitamins and enzymes than the food began with. Enzyme-rich foods have many benefits including [2]: Increase digestibility of food we eat Boost immune system Increase alkalinity; neutralizing pH levels Provide a healthy balance of friendly flora in the gut (Learn more about your microbiome in my other blog posts ) Tone the colon and help with elimination Control cravings for unhealthier foods Eliminate toxins and undigested wastes in the body In the “old days,” people use to ferment all kinds of foods through pickling, canning, pasteurization and added salt. Nowadays, however, large scale fermentation has lost many of its nutritious benefits due to the need for speed to get the product on the shelf as fast as possible and as cheap as possible. The only true fermented foods you will find are sauerkraut, kombucha, yogurt and kefir, beans, wine and beer, some meats (such as salami and pastrami), legumes and nuts (such as tofu, soy sauce and miso), sourdough bread, and various kinds of vegetables [3]. Fun facts about sauerkraut: The Germans “stole” it from the Chinese! Sauerkraut (probably not labeled as such for the Chinese, but the same recipe) was one of the main foods for those who built the Great Wall of China. Genghis Khan brought it to Eastern Europe during an invasion. It also contains high levels of vitamin C, and sailors often took it on long journeys to prevent scurvy.
How can we best keep blood sugar stable? Do what our body is designed to do – use fat for energy. Our species did not survive the Ice Age because of vanilla coffee lattes and cheesecake. Throughout most of our history, we ate a diet that was likely 50-70 percent fat. Look at the old family photo albums, specifically pictures of people in the first half of the 1900s, before we had so many processed foods. You won’t see many fat people--in fact, most look darn skinny. If they lived on the farm, they ate lots of eggs, meat, milk, and vegetables out of their own backyards. “Diet foods” were non-existent. Heart disease was almost non-existent. Our metabolism is designed to work much better with fats better than with sugar. Fats provide the slow and steady fuel our body likes to use for energy. Think of fats as a slow-burning log on the fire. One log (i.e. one meal containing fats) lasts for hours. Starchy carbs, on the flip side, are like kindling. You constantly have to throw more twigs (chips, pasta, bagels) to keep the fire burning. The first step is to know your sugars by reading the labels, and then avoid said sugars as much as possible.
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