The Role Adrenaline Plays In Our Metabolic Health

Are you ready to dive deep into the powerful world of your metabolism? Join us as we uncover the electrifying role adrenaline plays in our metabolic health. Witness how this potent hormone turbocharges our energy levels and what it means for our overall well-being. Stay tuned for an adrenaline-pumped journey through the human body, and learn how to harness this force for a healthier, more vibrant you!

Trying to find an integrative medicine or functional medicine doctor who understands what you're going through? Lam Clinic does Telemedicine all over the world and is only a phone call away.

1. Educate yourself by visiting our website: www.lamclinic.com

2. Call our office at 714-709-8000 to schedule an appointment.

FIND US ONLINE HERE:
» Website: https://www.lamclinic.com/
» Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lamclinic
» Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lam_clinic/
» Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lamclinic
» YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/LAMCLINIC

Transcript

Dr. Michael Lam: 0:00

We're gonna explore here the role adrenaline plays in our metabolic health, along with cortisol and insulin. If you look at the chart, it kind of maps out the whole flow for you. We start off at the top with stress. When the stress reaches the brain, the first place to receive it is the hypothalamus. And then from there it goes down. So, you can see one arrow from the brain is that it makes a neurotransmitter called norepinephrine. Now norepinephrine is both a neurotransmitter in the brain and it works locally. It doesn't have to go anywhere, okay. It transmit themselves to other neurons in the brain and exert its effect, including anxiety, alertness, and so on. And if you are getting a cup of coffee, that's where it's acting or if you take any street drugs like amphetamines, the body fuels up and this is a neurotransmitter type effect. At the same time, the brain also sends signals through the HPA axis, the hypothalamus, pituitary adrenal axis down to the adrenal glands, and the signal is there. And in that, you know, glands there are two parts one is called adrenal cortex, and one is called the adrenal medulla. Now in the cortex, they make a hormone called cortisol, and then in the medulla will make a hormone called adrenaline. So let's look at cortisol first. Cortisol is the anti inflammatory hormones of the body. And at first, if you have stress, the cortisol tends to go up in order to do what the colors are, breaks down the blood, the body and produce more sugar, you can see that. And why is because your body is preparing you to run away and you will need energy. At the same time, the cortisol will also regulate inflammation by reducing because the body's anticipating that you're going to be stressed, you're going to be inflamed. So the Calypso has an anti inflammatory effect, in addition to its blood going up effect. So the cortisol is a kind of a universal hormone. It's very, very potent, and is the body's primary anti stress hormone. Okay, so that's number one. And number two, is that when you have high cortisol, the body is reacting normally. But ultimately, if you don't have the cortisol comes down and then becomes dysregulated, then the body becomes lacking in cortisol and that's when you get adrenal fatigue. And the symptoms include fatigue, generalized for exercise, capacity reduction, hormone dysregulation, progesterone, estrogen, issues with menses, PMS etc. The thyroid will slow down because the body wants the thyroid to slow down to conserve energy. So you will have a subclinical hypothyroid to be considered. The blood pressure tends to go down because you're losing salt as the aldosterone hormone, which is produced by adrenals are affected when the adrenal function are weakened. You also have substantial obesity at the muffin top, which is quite common. That's of course, separately covered in a different lecture as the cortisol goes up first and eventually flattens out. Now it's important to realize that when we said earlier, cortisol raises blood sugar, you can see the arrow, but if you kind of step back and look at the adrenal medulla, the medulla receives stress signal from the body from the brain. And what does it do? It basically releases adrenaline into the bloodstream. This is what we call reactive sympathetic response. Reactive, it is because it's reacting from the brain. Sympathetic because adrenaline is part of the sympathetic nervous system. And this is a response to stress, okay, and it's the body's way of preparing us for fight or flight. And so as the adrenaline goes up, you can see the symptoms would include heart palpitations, ATD, ADHD, on the right hand side anxiety disordered OCD, muscle tension will go up because adrenaline helps the muscle to constrict in order to help you to run, resulting in fatigue, increased lactic acid and fibromyalgia. Increased adrenaline can also cause restless legs, headaches, urinary incontinence, bedwetting, chronic interstitial cystitis, road rage and a host of other things. Remember. adrenaline is the ultimate and the last resort. So, when the adrenaline comes out, everything else has to take a backseat, and that's what is the design. Now we will go backwards and take a look a little bit. Note there are three areas that can increase adrenaline. Number one, the cortisol from the adrenal glands. Increased cortisol will lead to increased adrenaline. Number two, increased norepinephrine from the stress will also increase adrenaline because adrenaline is a chemically, biochemically the daughter of norepinephrine. So. norepinephrine, some of it will convert into adrenaline. So, whether it is from adrenaline, whether it's from cortisol, ultimately, adrenaline also behaves like cortisol, in its goal of raising blood sugar. So, ultimately, the blood sugar has three kinds of strikes, that's going three pathways. You can get blood sugar increase from cortisol increase from the adrenals. You can get blood sugar increase from adrenaline increase from the adrenal medulla. And you can have dietary carbohydrate. So, if you eat a donut, if you take a sweet, you're tired, and you drink a soda pop, that will ultimately increase your blood sugar. Okay, so so far, you know, it is pretty clear and pretty straightforward. These are all been researched for a long time. Well, ultimately, what does blood sugar do? Now, when you have increase in blood sugar, you're going to have increase in insulin, okay? Insulin is a hormone secreted is a peptide, insulin secreted by the pancreas. And Its job is to bring the sugar back down because you cannot have high sugar forever. So, sugar can be secreted normally, as you can see on the arrow, and it can be excessively increased. So, let's say now if you have too much insulin, secreted by the pancreas as a response to either too much food that is high in carbohydrate, too much stress, then your body's blood sugar will go down, because that's the job of the insulin. Now normally insulin secreted in the right amount that will not bring it will bring the sugar down from a high, but not too low, in terms of ultimate sugar level. So, the body release a certain amount of insulin just right to bring the sugar level down to normal from high if you are eating a high carbohydrate diet or under stress. However, if there's too much insulin release or over a period of time, then the body's blood sugar actually goes down. So, this goes down, can be signified with things like a food coma. So, if you eat a meal that's high in pasta, or carbohydrates, and you know soon after that, you feel palpitations, and you feel kind of sleepy, you have brain fog, that is a reactive hypoglycemia. And what does it do? The reactive hyperglycemia is telling us that it is low in blood sugar. Even though on an absolute basis, if you were met, we would measure the blood sugar and maybe between 70 to 90 range, it's really not low. So it does not qualify for the clinical definition of hypoglycemia, but its reactive, meaning the blood sugar if you mentioned it is normal, but if you but you have symptoms of this, you know brain fog or I said earlier anxiety, and part of it is because the reactive hypoglycemia has a feedback loop that that the body thinks oh I'm in danger. So, let me release more adrenaline. So, the feedback loop goes up to release more adrenaline which will then, look at the arrow, go to heart palpitations, etc, etc, etc., ADHD, anxiety. So, it's not unusual for people after they eat food high in carbs to have this type of symptoms. So that is a reactive hypoglycemic type reaction. Okay? Now, if you look at the other part of insulin, if its a normal release of insulin then the sugar that you take from your diet, you know, from the high cortisol and the high adrenaline which normalize and then the sugar is then pushed into cells, especially in the liver, to be stored. Now the liver is stored as sugar as fat, ultimately, and triglyceride, okay, this is how the body store its excessive carbohydrate, because remember, the body cannot use carbohydrates 24/7. The carbohydrate load acts as an instant fast reserved only lasts two to eight hours. And after that you have to convert the body's fat and protein into a carb and other substrates such as ketones for the brain to work. So, let's look at this more closely. There is sugar that's stored in the fat and triglyceride can reach up to a certain level because the liver is kind of a closed organ right? It cannot expand forever because there are other things in the stomach wall and where does the extra I'm talking about extra fat and extra triglycerides stored? So, you look at down here it looks like it becomes fatty liver. So when you look at the liver, it has fat deposits on the outside pathologically. That is very classic fatty liver and usually is accompanied by increased triglyceride in the blood, and as the body have more and more triglyceride, and a liver that is congested, what happens is that the body's trying to get rid of it. So how do you get rid of the triglyceride? From the liver, you package it, the body package it in the form of LDL, and VLDL. So these are lipoproteins that carry the cholesterol, and the chakras right from the liver and secreted out from the liver to the peripheral bloodstream so that the blood can have those fat and triglyceride as a source of energy if the carbohydrate load goes down, and you still need energy, but it ran out. So, if you are on a low carb diet or fasting, the body is going to break down liver fat. And that's why the checklist rate goes up, your LDL goes up, your VLDL goes up, and your HDL also go up. But the good news is your weight will go down and your blood sugar will go down because if you're fasting, you're not going to be needing as much insulin. Now, so, we've discussed about the fatty liver. And then that's why it's very important to look at triglycerides, and not just look at HDL, LDL, VLDL, and especially total cholesterol, which is kind of useless. So, to say this doesn't tell you the clear picture. Now, remember, we talked about when the liver becomes saturated? Well, when the sugar cannot be pushed in to the cell anymore, right? So, you the body continues to make insulin. And when you see sugar in the bloodstream, the sugar has been pushed into the liver as triglyceride and fat. But there's a limit. When this limit is reached, then the sugar cannot go in. It's like, you know, the car can only hold five passengers, you put eight in, the three cannot go in so it has to leave outside. So, the excess sugar will be spilled back into the blood, and therefore your blood sugar will go up. And this is a classic sign of adult onset diabetes type two. So, people who are obese or takes a lot of carbohydrates in this beyond what the body needs will have a high sugar level in the blood. And the body will then go into a loop that will make more insulin in order to push it in. So, there's a loop, when you have more sugar in the blood, the body usually will make more insulin. But of course, there's also a limit after a while the insulin from the pancreas become exhausted, and then you don't have enough insulin. So, the body's blood sugar continue to rise. Okay? So the fat cells saturations as you can see here, result in excess blood sugar spilling into the blood. And no matter how hard you push, insulin, the body resists. So, this is known also as insulin resistance. And that's why, you know, drugs that help with insulin delivery, or sensitivities, including Metformin, or even straight insulin itself, it works. But it works to a certain degree. And in the beginning, it works very well. And some people can have it last for a long time. But ultimately, you didn't solve the problem. The underlying problem is that you know, you have a saturation problem. And you have to create the room for the liver to expand and the only way to do it is to reduce carbohydrate intake at the source. That way you don't force the liver to expand, and you've and then you create room for the insulin to come from the pancreas. And then we establish its auto regulation mechanisms. So, if you're on a low carb diet, you will lose weight, your triglycerides will go down, your VLDL will go up. Your triglycerides overall will go down as the liver tries to use the chakras right to maintain its weight. But it's not going to overdo it as compared to if you just overload your body with carbs. And the other hand, if you don't watch your diet, and you take a lot of carbs then your liver will be saturated with sugar and then it's spilled back into the bloodstream, the fat cell will be saturated and causing insulin resistance and then ultimately an adult onset diabetes, which then create a more another set of problems physiologically, including kidney damage, cardiovascular disease, etc. So, in summary, you know, you have to look at adrenaline incident cortisol and all those three things play together. Of course, you know, depends the symptoms that you have, you know, metabolically, the body is deranged, if they're stressed because of the cortisol increasing adrenaline and then causing insulin problems flowing downstream. But if you have a lot of carbohydrates, you increase blood sugar that will also cause insulin to be dysregulated. And lastly, if you have a higher amount of adrenaline from stress from cortisol or independently, then you also have this problem. So, appreciating the role of adrenaline, cortisol, and insulin playing an active role in the little triangle. And they affect each other. Increased cortisol lead to increased adrenaline and an increase in blood sugar. Increase in adrenaline also goes back and increased cortisol and also increased blood sugar. And if you add the insult with increased dietary sugar, or cut out dietary carbohydrates, ultimately your sugar is going to be sky high. And then this will tax your pancreas to make more insulin and insulin becomes dysregulated and you have diabetes you have insulin resistance, you have lipid dyslipidemia, etc. So it's, I hope this is you can appreciate the importance of balancing cortisol, insulin, adrenaline in your body. So, if you're balance these three, not only will you metabolically be more healthy, your weight will go down, your cardiovascular risk will go down. Okay.