When your brain, adrenal glands, sex organs, pancreas and thyroid gland work together, they produce just the right amounts of hormones and chemical messengers that control many of the body’s basic functions.
When it’s working together, you feel great. When any of these organs are out of sync, however, you can feel awful. Problems start when too much or not enough of a hormone (or several) is produced, which can throw off the delicate balance.
You can experience two types of problems when your hormones are out of balance:
1. Uncomfortable symptoms that can begin to change how you think, feel and act, affecting your quality of life.
2. An increased risk of illness, such as depression, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes and certain cancers.
Communication between hormones and the brain is strongly two-way: The brain produces signals that trigger the release of hormones, and hormones from other parts of the body also influence the brain. When thyroid activity is low, brain activity is typically low as well. That’s why an under-active thyroid often leads to depression, irritability and brain fog.
Meet the Hormone “Family”
There are hundreds of hormones in the body that affect the brain. Here are 7 of the most important ones, we will discuss today:
• Thyroid
• Cortisol
• DHEA
• Estrogen
• Progesterone
• Testosterone
• Insulin
Thyroid: The Energy Regulator
The thyroid—a small, butterfly-shaped gland located in your lower neck. These hormones are among the most influential in your body, and all have to be in the right balance to keep brain and body healthy.
Too little of any thyroid hormone (hypothyroidism) makes you feel like a slug; you just want to lie on the couch all day with a bag of chips. Everything works slower, including your heart, your bowels and your brain. This is because the thyroid gland drives the production of many neurotransmitters that run the brain, including serotonin, dopamine and GABA.
Thyroid problems can occur at any time in a person’s life, though women are especially prone to problems after having a baby—usually within six months of the birth. During pregnancy, certain parts of the immune system relax so that immune cells and antibodies will not reject the baby’s placenta, which is attached to the mother’s uterus. This is why many women with thyroid problems feel that pregnancy is the best time of their lives, as it calms those issues.
How Many People Have Thyroid Problems?
Tens of millions of men and women are thought to have thyroid problems—5 to 25 percent of the world’s population.
Most thyroid issues are autoimmune, which means that the body is attacking itself. This may be due to environmental toxins that are stored in our bodies, food allergies (gluten and dairy products, in particular) or to something in the air we breathe.
Factors that Inhibit Thyroid Production:
• Excess stress and cortisol production
• Selenium deficiency
• Deficient protein, excess sugar
• Chronic illness
• Compromised liver or kidney function
• Cadmium, mercury, lead toxicity
• Herbicides, pesticides
• Oral contraceptives, excessive estrogen production
Cortisol and DHEA: Our Lady of Perpetual Stress
The adrenals, a pair of triangle-shaped glands that sit atop your kidneys, are critically involved in your body’s reaction to stress. The adrenals produce the hormones adrenaline, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA) and cortisol, which are released in the famous “fight-or-flight response.” Here is how it works: Let’s say you’re hiking through the woods with your children when you see a mountain lion; immediately, your adrenals start producing adrenaline and the other hormones that will give you the burst of energy you need to either fight the lion or pick up the children and run.
The Problem
The problem is, your body doesn’t differentiate among the various kinds of stress you experience. Whether it’s physical stress at the sight of the mountain lion or mental stress caused by your raging teenager or catty coworkers, your body reacts the same way, pumping out those chemicals. But when you run away from the mountain lion, your body processes the chemicals and gets them out of your system. Not so when you get stressed over the way your coworker treated you; all you can do is return to your office or cubicle and stew. That leaves a dangerous cocktail of chemicals surging through your body until every one of them is finally metabolized.
Can Stress Be a Trigger?
In today’s world, you’re likely faced with psychological stress daily. You wake up to a blaring alarm, and the first thing you do is check your e-mail to see what people are demanding of you. On the way to work you get stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic or sardined on a delayed train and arrive late to face a slew of impossible deadlines. Your son’s school calls to tell you that he has been getting into fights.
When cortisol is chronically elevated, blood sugar and insulin levels also rise. And your brain doesn’t fare well. Serotonin, the calming brain chemical, drops, leading to anxiety, nervousness or depression. Food cravings increase, your sleep is disturbed and your health can spiral out of control. Chronic exposure to stress hormones has been shown to kill cells in your hippocampus, a major memory center in the brain, especially when DHEA is also low.
Hormones & Sex
Adrenal fatigue leads to an especially dangerous buildup of fat in your abdomen. Not only do you ruin your chances of having a flat belly, but you’re at greater risk of cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Low cortisol also promotes inflammation, affects immune function and alters blood sugar control and sex hormone production. When the adrenals are busy making stress hormones, they divert your stores of DHEA, which would have eventually been converted to sex hormones.
Feel Better Today
At Amen Clinics, we have spent decades helping people just like you improve their overall health and thus their brain health. We offer a full breadth of treatment options and services, including an integrative medicine program. Call us today at 888-288-9834 or schedule a visit.
you left out DHEA??? please elaborate on that? i send these to my patients in efforts to get them stabilized, DHEA is important issue!!!
Comment by KM — February 26, 2018 @ 2:53 AM
Is there a clinic near Mobile AL?
Comment by Josephine C Gilbert — February 26, 2018 @ 3:32 AM
Do you offer hormone testing and services at the Chicago location?
Comment by Janene — February 26, 2018 @ 5:15 AM
I have adrenal insufficiency. I take hydrocortisone everyday. I have gained over 60 pounds in the last year because of the hydrocortisone. They say to exercise but I am too tired to even get out of bed in the morning. I got adrenal deficiency because of his pitaritory gland in my brain. I have asked Dr if I could get this brain tumor removed because I’ve had it over 10 years and is cause this problem. I can’t find someone to remove it to improve my health. Is there some way your Kinect can help me maybe find a different medication or remove this tumor thank you Christina Church
Comment by Christina Church — February 26, 2018 @ 8:19 AM
Hello Josephine, our current locations can be found here – https://amenclinics.com/locations/.
Comment by Amen Clinics — February 26, 2018 @ 2:29 PM
Do you know of any affiliates or clinics similar to yours in Australia specifically Melbourne, Australia?
Comment by Terry Vella — February 26, 2018 @ 5:16 PM
Hello Terry, our Care Coordinators are available to provide referrals in your area for providers that follow The Amen Clinics Method. You can reach us at 949-266-3715, or by submitting this form – https://amenclinics.com/schedule-visit/.
Comment by Amen Clinics — February 27, 2018 @ 8:33 AM
Referral request for physicians/clinics in the San Antonio/Boerne, TX area. I have been managing Grave’s Disease naturally since 2014 but am looking for more root issues to dispose of the issue altogether. My adult son is also interested in your program as he has been recently diagnosed with Schizo/Affective disorder and we’ve been checking into ways he can manage/heal his brain from that and have more hope than what he’s been given for this issue. He and I both were primary care givers for my brother who passed away last April 16th, one month short of his 51st birthday, from a long battle with FrontoTemporal Dementia and our whole family has been looking for answers for 7 yrs for this; I wish we would have found you and Dr. Hyman then. We have a family history of dementias so needless to say, we all want to implement ways we can prevent any more of us going down this road. We are very much interested in starting with my and oldest son and I having a SPECT scan so if you can additionally recommend someone in this area that does that as well.
Comment by Cassandra Sewell — February 27, 2018 @ 3:21 PM
Hello Cassandra, thank you for reaching out and sharing with us. We have passed your information on to a Care Coordinator who will contact you.
Comment by Amen Clinics — February 27, 2018 @ 4:08 PM
How can increased testosterone levels effect the ADD brain?
Comment by David — August 8, 2018 @ 9:56 PM
I ve asked previously what the cost is for brain spect . I ve suffered long enough from stress, anxiety n depression . I’ve have TMS as well in 2016 from Dec to Feb 2017 but not much help. I am very interested but am not getting answers. How about consultation? I have to travel back to United States just to go to Amen Clinic. I have Premera Federal Blue Cross Blue Shield.
Thank you for your time.
Comment by Angelita Nelvis — June 22, 2019 @ 7:13 AM
Is Bi Polar in the same family as ADHD, etc.?
Comment by Tricia RUIZ — June 24, 2019 @ 11:38 PM
Hi, I have been following your website for several years after I heard Dr Amen on a Saddleback podcast, I would really appreciate your help but we are based in Highland Scotland. Do you have any services/support here in the UK?
best wishes
Liz
Comment by Liz — June 25, 2019 @ 12:11 AM