Sugar, Stress and Cortisol, How They Wreak Havoc on Your Endocrine System

In keeping with this blogs theme, including stress, I am taking a bit of a break from coming up with new material this month and reproducing one of my earliest blogs for you!

Three ways chronic elevated cortisol disrupts endocrine system balance are the effects of cortisol on the liver, pancreas, and adrenals.

The liver does many things, it turns off hormones that are in excess or are no longer working.  These hormones have to be broken down and joined together and then removed from the body.

Chronically high cortisol levels inhibit the ability of the liver pathways to join the broken-down hormones and get rid of them.

The pancreas which puts out insulin as it is needed, has insulin receptors on cells that will not respond properly to insulin when cortisol is chronically elevated.  This puts a huge burden on the pancreas to put out even more insulin to be able to transport glucose into cells.  Constantly putting out insulin leads to high insulin levels and all the issues that go along with that.  Metabolic syndrome, insulin resistance and eventually full-blown diabetes.

The adrenals are responsible for making the glucocorticoids cortisol and adrenaline that regulate blood sugar and inflammation and the mineralocorticoids, the main one being aldosterone, that helps to regulate sodium and potassium.  They are responsible for our fight or flight response to emergencies.  Emergencies perceived by the adrenal glands can be anything from regular sugar consumption to emotional stress, digestive and or nutritional problems and diseases.

A note on the adrenals and sugar consumption and how they fit into that:
When we are consuming too much sugar, the pancreas pumps out as much insulin as it can to deal with blood sugar spikes in our blood.  When this happens, we have a substantial drop in blood sugar after that substantial rise, and our energy production drops dangerously low.  This is an emergency situation for the liver, which is trying to convert glycogen back into glucose (glycogenolysis).  This takes time, and there is no time, so the adrenals now sensing this emergency, put out cortisol and adrenaline to immediately bring up blood sugar levels.  Our adrenal glands are meant to be there for emergencies only, but we have put them in the front line, eating high sugar diets and living lives filled with emotional stress, toxins stimulants, digestive issues, and nutritional weaknesses.  This causes the adrenals to not function as well as they should be.

Adrenal function is a priority over reproduction, metabolic rate, and other endocrine functions.  Because of this, our adrenal glands are allowed to “steal” nutrients and precursors to hormones from other areas of the endocrine system as they see fit.

So if our adrenal glands have been called upon to handle blood sugar regulation on a regular basis, to function in a constant state of fight or flight, pumping out cortisol and adrenaline on a regular basis, the only hope for them to survive, is to steal from other areas of the endocrine system, leaving the areas of the endocrine system, depleted.
 
Simply lowering, or even better, removing sugar from your daily diet, removes stress on the adrenal glands.  Removing the stress on the adrenal glands allows your hormones to remain where they are meant to be and nutrients can be used for other parts of the body.