Nutritional Endocrinology
Nutritional Endocrinology and our "happy or unhappy" Hormones
Our hormones created by our ten endocrine glands when balanced, healthy and well nourished, can help us to feel happy and positive, not moody, depressed, or irritable, regenerate our bodies, maintain a healthy body weight, keep us youthful and energetic regardless of age, give us vitality and stamina, provide us with a healthy sex drive, bless us with children, and renew us with restful sleep. The endocrine glands are a family of organs that function together and dysfunction together. When we help one gland with rest, exercise, and nutrition, we help them all. When we stress one gland, the entire system responds and they are all affected. For example, when we insult the pancreas with refined carbohydrates or white sugar, the adrenals, thyroid, and pituitary must secrete their hormones to respond to this blood sugar imbalance. The endocrine glands rise and fall together as a system and family of intricately related organs which secrete tiny amounts (nano and pico grams) of their hormones directly into the blood stream. Your endocrine glands include the hypothalamus, pituitary, pineal, thyroid, parathyroid, thymus, pancreas, adrenals, ovaries, and testis. I can provide you with a handout which describes the functioning and interrelation of each of the glands in greater detail.
From performing acupuncture pulse diagnosis, I have learned that when one or more organ systems, such as immune, urinary, bilary, digestive, or cardiovascular system, are out of balance or weakened, the endocrine works over time to bring balance to the organ systems and to make up for organ deficiencies and excesses. When the organs are balanced and strengthened through excellent nutrition, rest, relaxation, prayer, and electrical energy from acupressure, massage, and acupuncture, the endocrine system becomes balanced.
Stress is a huge imbalancer of the endocrine system. Living in a prolonged stress mode can damage all the endocrine glands and along with other organs such as the brain and nervous system. Chronic stress causes the body to produce too much cortisol which causes weight grain, leads to exhaustion, and shuts down estrogen and testosterone production. Optimal amounts of testosterone and estrogen regenerate our tissues and body and keep us youthful. Prolonged cortisol exposure damages many of our organs, i.e. has a catabolic (tearing down) effect on our tissues. Living in chronic stress mode dysregulates the functioning of the hypothalamus and pituitary glands which communicate with the eight other endocrine organs, slows the thyroid (lowers metabolism=weight gain), exhausts the adrenals (chronic fatigue and insomnia), raises cholesterol (plaques up our blood vessels), and causes leptin resistance (we can’t stop eating because our brain stops signaling that we are full!), creates insulin resistance in insulin cell receptors which can lead to diabetes, and lowers our immunity.
It is important to feed our endocrine glands and give them the foods, minerals, glandulars, botanicals, hydration, and nutrition that make them happy! I utilize self reported information about your endocrine glands from the Metabolic Assessment Form (download here) along with the BioMeridian Testing System- Meridian Stress Assessment System (Computerized Electrodermal Screening) to determine if each of your endocrine glands are:
1) balanced
2) stressed and inflamed
3) weakened and exhausted.
At the end of the testing, you will get a print out of their performance. We electronically test nutritional products which will bring each endocrine gland back into a healthy and balanced state. Your endocrine glands and meridians electronically signal which nutritional products they need, their daily dosage, and duration of nutritional therapy through electroacupuncture points on your hands and feet. I frequently use protocols developed by Dr. Janet Lang, DC of Restorative Endocrinology and Dr. Stephen Stiteler L. Ac., OMD, NMD, D. Hom of Apex Energetics. These products tested may be from Standard Process, MediHerb, Apex, Atrium, Energique, and Deseret Biologicals.
If we need more information about your endocrine system due to PMS, menopause, perimenopause, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, infertility, andropause (male menopause), painful or irregular menstruation, estrogen dominance in men and women, endometriosis, polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), hypo or hyperthyroid, Hashimoto’s disease or other endocrine conditions, a hormone saliva test can be performed and sent to Diagnos-Tech Labs. Saliva hormone testing may be more accurate than blood testing hormones. In the saliva, we have free hormones which are ready for action on cell receptor sites. Your blood contains protein bound hormones that are less reactive. After we receive your test results, we have a telephone consultation with a medical doctor or nutritional clinician at Diagnos-Tech Labs and receive a complete explanation of your results and further nutritional recommendations.
To continue reading about the ten major endocrine glands, click here.
