MetaHealing: Adrenal Glands - Love em or lose em

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Adrenal Glands…Love ‘em or Lose ‘em
by Judith Cobb

Very few people think about the task that the adrenal glands are charged with. We support other body systems like the lungs, heart, and stomach, but often we ignore one of the most important players in our health.

We all know about heart and lungs and stomach and bowels, but most of us don’t know much, if anything at all, about our adrenal glands. That’s not good. Adrenals are resilient to a point, but if you don’t love them enough, they may eventually snub you and stop doing their multiple jobs. The simpleness of their outward appearance belies the complexity, importance, and far reaching effects of the hormones they produce. Simply put, as you will see, these hormones are so important that they are essential for life.

The adrenals are two small compound glands not much bigger than a vinyl eraser. Each is sat directly on top of a kidney. As compound glands, these glands are multi-layered. The inner portion is the medulla and functions quite independently of the outer portion. It secretes specific hormones that we will discuss later. The outer portion is the cortex. It is made up of three distinct layers, each with their own hormonal purposes, which we will also discuss in detail.

So why, exactly, are these little glands so important? Because they are a part of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic nervous system is responsible primarily for body responses that happen under stress. Think of the ‘fight or flight’ response. When you hear a bear come crashing through the woods at you, you become more alert, your pupils dilate improving your peripheral vision, your bronchioles dilate to enhance your intake of air, your heart pumps faster and harder, your blood sugars skyrocket, your digestion stops (after all, digestion is not as important as getting to safety), the peripheral circulation diminishes, your blood pressure increases, and the circulation in your large muscles increases. This is all because an urgent message of danger, fear, or excitement was sent from your brain to your adrenal glands, and they responded instantaneously with the right hormones to cause these reactions and save your life. At some time in your life you have experienced how amazingly quickly these sympathetic nervous system/adrenal gland reactions happen.

The parasympathetic system, on the other hand, is the great re-balancer. After a sympathetic nervous system experience (like winning a lottery), the parasympathetic system kicks in to restore normalcy.

The outer, or cortex, layer of the adrenal glands is divided into three layers. As a unit, the cortex secretes steroid hormones, also known in general as corticosteroids. The outermost of the three layers (zona glomerulosa) is responsible for secreting hormones that deal with fluid and electrolyte balance, including aldosterone and other mineralocortocoids. Translated into English, the aldosterone produced by this region regulates blood pressure and fluid in the blood stream by controlling the amount of sodium and potassium (plasma salts) in the blood stream. Electrolytes are electrically charged molecules of which sodium/potassium, calcium/magnesium are just two such pairs. When the glomerulosa is out of balance and oversecreting aldosterone the body will retain sodium and excrete potassium in excessive amounts, thus increasing fluid retention and blood pressure. However, if sodium levels fall too low, or potassium levels climb too high, or blood volume or pressure falls, aldosterone secretion will be stimulated to correct and increase blood pressure.

Aldosterone also stimulates the secretion of another hormone, through a long chemical chain of events, which increases blood pressure by causing constriction of peripheral capillaries.

If aldosterone cannot be made or supplied, death will result fairly quickly. Without controls on sodium and potassium balance, the brain, nervous system, and heart cannot function, dehydration follows, and shock rapidly ensues. The only medically known and proven therapies include administration of aldosterone, salt and fluids.

The next layer (zona fasciculata) is active in secreting hormones that influence carbohydrate metabolism, such as cortisol. Cortisol (you may know it better by its pharmaceutical incarnation, cortisone), serves many purposes in the body. We are familiar with the use of topical cortisone to control eczema and psoriasis because it does many things including speeding tissue repair and reducing inflammation. Chronic stress, however, leads to excess cortisol production which can cause stomach ulcers, atrophying of the lymph nodes, reduction in white blood cells, high blood pressure by increasing vasoconstriction, and other vascular disorders.

The third and inner most layer of the cortex is the zona reticularis which produces small amounts of sex hormones. Specifically, it produces androgen, estrogen, and progesterone. Now, think about menopause. A woman reaches age 50. She has had a normal amount of stress in her life, has had average nutrition, and drinks coffee to whip her tired adrenal glands into action to give her energy. How reliably are her tired adrenal glands going to produce their hormones? This is important, because the androgen that should be released should then be converted into more estrogen when it passes through fat cells in her body. Because of adrenal abuse and exhaustion she is hormone deficient in androgen, estrogen, progesterone, or all three, and she now has many of the uncomfortable symptoms of menopause. Adrenal support can help to correct some, if not all, of the problems of menopause.

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