A great many people today suffer from adrenal fatigue to some degree or another. Often, they have no idea. Because this condition can develop gradually and begin causing problems well before it qualifies for an official medical diagnosis of an ailment recognized by conventional medicine, it frequently goes unrecognized.
Even if people go see a doctor about their complaints and get testing, the tests come back as “normal.” Things have to get extremely bad before adrenal fatigue is recognized by the typical medical doctor.
Unlike traditional Eastern medicine, Western medicine fails to recognize that poor health ramps up gradually, thus something is going wrong well before it fits the diagnostic criteria for recognized Western medical conditions. When someone is miserable all the time, but a medical doctor tells them that “There is nothing wrong. All tests are within the normal range.” this is a failing of Western medicine.
There is no reason that real problems cannot be recognized and addressed sooner. It is a failing of mental models. There are tests available that can identify subtler problems, and there is adequate information available. Yet, adrenal fatigue simply fails to make the radar of most medical professionals.
Adrenal fatigue
Adrenal fatigue is caused by chronic stress. The modern lifestyle of living hard, being exposed to highly toxic substances, not eating right and not getting enough rest tends to wear on people. Over time, the body’s natural stress response gets over used and the body stops being able to rise to the occasion.
This is in part because we live in a toxic world. There are a great many synthetic chemicals invented in the last 100 years or so that simply did not exist before. The wonders of modern science and industry have come at a cost to human health.
Often, we simply do not know exactly what these substances do to people. There may not be enough of a track record to fully understand them. In other cases, we know they harm human health and even know some of the specific ways in which they harm human health, but the very real harm they do is downplayed or not taken seriously enough.
These synthetic chemicals are frequently very hard on the liver. As the liver deteriorates, everything else also deteriorates. It becomes a bottleneck on the system. If it cannot be cleared, it starts a downward spiral that nothing seems able to stop.
But another reason that our stress response system becomes overwhelmed by modern life is because our natural stress response is primarily intended to ramp things up suddenly for dealing with short term, acute stress, but our modern lifestyles expose us to far too many chronic or recurrent sources of stress. Thus, many people stay on edge all the time. They never catch a break or get to really relax and recover. It takes its toll and people slowly deteriorate.
As adrenal fatigue worsens, it begins negatively impacting other systems. When the adrenals are run on high constantly, this eventually stresses other hormone producing organs, including the thyroid.
When the hormonal systems are not functioning properly, it takes its toll on the body generally. As the body generally deteriorates, the gut becomes increasingly compromised as well. This is a serious problem in its own right.
The gut constitutes about 70 percent of the human immune system. Thus, once the gut is involved, a person is basically chronically ill. Worse, they have no hope of getting well again without first repairing the gut function.
The adrenals and gut are part of the body’s defense system. They help the body protect itself from what life throws at it. As these two critical systems become dysfunctional, the entire body begins to just not function. Sleep becomes elusive. Blood sugar labels become unstable. The person is simply exhausted all the time and no amount of rest seems to be enough.
One function of the gut is to eliminate toxic wastes. It works with the kidneys and liver to perform this vital task. As it slowly fails, the garbage begins to back up.
Think of how unhealthy your house would be if you started taking out only half of the trash. If you did that, the mound of garbage would slowly grow. It would get more and more backed up and germs would grow in the mound of garbage.
This is what happens in the human body when the gut begins to fail. The body cannot remove the wastes from the system. Once that process starts, it gets worse and worse. The growing backlog of garbage makes it harder still to handle today’s pile of garbage. Things grow ever more toxic until the liver and other vital systems are completely overwhelmed.
When adrenal fatigue and general deterioration are in their early stages, it is not uncommon for people to consume caffeine and other stimulants in an effort to pump up the body and help it cope. This is a short term strategy with long term costs. It takes its toll on the body and helps worsen the situation.
This turns into a situation like being on a hamster wheel. People run faster to try to keep up, but never get anywhere. They start becoming depressed. They may be dealing with feeling cold all the time. They may have an irritable bowel and frequently have diarrhea or constipation. They often crave salt and may find themselves mindlessly eating salty snacks that are not all that healthy. This can contribute to the tendency to gain weight and be unable to get it off or keep it off that is so common with adrenal fatigue.
Some people think they are merely getting old. In truth, they are experiencing gradual onset adrenal fatigue. This can be ameliorated so that vitality and energy improve. It is not an unavoidable downhill slide.
One of the first things that needs to be done is to address dietary insufficiencies, either through a change in diet or a supplement regimen or both. The right kind of healthy fats play an important role in the recovery process.
Medium chain triglycerides This is the chemical term for a class of fatty acids. It is often shortened to MCT oil. The individual members of this class of fatty acids were named for the length of their carbon chain. They have between six and twelve carbons. Fatty acids with more than twelve carbons are classified as long chain triglycerides (LCT). Fatty acids with fewer than six carbons are called short chain triglycerides (SCT).
Coconut oil and palm oil are both naturally high in medium chain triglycerides. Sometimes people get confused about this and think that coconut oil is the same thing as MCT oil. No, it is not. Good quality butter is another decent source, though it is not “high” in such fats.
No foods are naturally 100 percent made of MCT oils. Some fats or oils naturally contain a high percentage of MCT oils, but refinement is required to create pure MCT oil. In other words, to create an oil that contains nothing but medium chain triglycerides, with no long chain triglycerides and no short chain triglycerides. The resulting oil is sometimes used as a supplement.
Unlike LCT oils, MCT oils are readily absorbed by the body without digesting them. For this reason, they are easier on the gut and have long been recommended as beneficial for people with serious gut problems of any sort, including very serious health problems like cystic fibrosis or stomach cancer.
In fact, because MCT oils can be absorbed without digesting them, they can be applied topically and absorbed through the skin. For someone whose gut is very compromised and is having trouble eating at all, this detail can really make MCT oil a very valuable and convenient part of the recovery process.
As noted above, adrenal fatigue involves both stressing the thyroid and a deterioration of gut function. Whether taken as a supplement or added to the diet via oils or fats that are naturally high in medium chain triglycerides, MCT oils can help with both of these issues. They are known to provide thyroid support. Additionally, they can help heal the gut and can help foster a healthy gut microbiome by promoting a diversity of gut flora.
Additionally, MCT oils can help the body properly absorb sea salt. Sea salt is critical to the process of healing the adrenals. This is why people with adrenal fatigue crave salt. But, when it is seriously compromised, the body may not tolerate salt well. Taking MCT oil around the same time as sea salt can help the body absorb it properly and tolerate it better, speeding the improvement process.
However, MCT oils and sea salt can both promote diarrhea. When taken together, they can promote severe diarrhea. This is really just the body finally getting rid of a backlog of accumulated wastes. Nonetheless, it isn’t desirable to push things too hard, too fast.
Thus, if either sea salt or MCT oils were part of the diet or supplement regimen already and the other is added, it may be necessary to at least temporarily reduce the amount being consumed to account for the increased absorption. Otherwise, it may cause significant discomfort and an intolerable level of inconvenience.
As the gut and adrenals gradually improve, there will be less intestinal drama generally. Both constipation and diarrhea will become less frequent.
Healing the gut can help a patient lose weight. When the gut is compromised, malabsorption occurs. In other words, the body is not getting the full value of the nutrients available in the foods it is consuming. This can promote constant snacking. It also means that no matter what is eaten, too many calories are being taken in compared to the amount of vital nutrients.
The right oils play a critical role in the health of the body. It isn’t actually good for a person to consume no fat at all. It is more important to make sure the body gets the kinds of fats it needs. For a body in crisis, fats that can be absorbed and used directly without going through the process of being broken down by digestive enzymes puts a great deal less stress on the system.
Logistically speaking, it can be helpful to start with an MCT oil supplement or even a coconut oil supplement instead if trying to change the diet to include more MCT oils. Adding a supplement is a more easily controlled variable. If coconut oil or similar is substituted for some other source of fat in the diet, there are at least two variables there: 1) The reduction in one type of oil and 2) the addition of another type of oil.
Given that changing cooking oils can also impact how food is prepared, that is a best case scenario. In reality, it is likely to involve a great many more confounding variables that cannot be readily isolated.
If a supplement is introduced while the diet remains the same, it makes it easier to determine if it is being tolerated well or if the amount being consumed needs to be adjusted. Over time, the impact on the body will be more readily recognized, and the body will also grow stronger. Thus, this level of control will always be necessary. But it is prudent to begin the process this way.
