• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

Controlling blood sugar the most important aspect of 'adrenal fatigue'?

drob31

Senior Member
Messages
1,487
I was reading a bit about how dysglycemia can cause hypothyroidism, and it occurred to me that by simply having high/low or a combination of high and low blood sugar can cause symptoms of hypothyroidism.

https://chriskresser.com/thyroid-blood-sugar-metabolic-syndrome/

It’s important to understand that whether you have high or low blood sugar, you probably have some degree of insulin resistance. I described how high blood sugar causes insulin resistance above. But insulin resistance can also cause low blood sugar. This condition, called reactive hypoglycemia, occurs when the body secretes excess insulin in response to a high carbohydrate meal – causing blood sugar levels to drop below normal.


Unfortunately for hypoglycemics, repeated cortisol release caused by episodes of low blood sugar suppresses pituitary function. And as I showed in a previous article, without proper pituitary function, your thyroid can’t function properly.


We’ve seen now how both high and low blood sugar cause thyroid dysfunction. On the other hand, low thyroid function can cause dysglycemia and metabolic syndrome through a variety of mechanisms:

  • it slows the rate of glucose uptake by cells;
  • it decreases rate of glucose absorption in the gut;
  • it slows response of insulin to elevated blood sugar; and,
  • it slows the clearance of insulin from the blood.



So what this means is that the affects of insulin resistance can cause a myriad of issues that can lead to hypothyroid symptoms, via different pathways.

I personally know insulin resistance is an issue for myself, but there is one final pathway:

Excess cortisol causes insulin resistance, and ironically while progesterone can normalize insulin sensitivity, your body may be using up the progesterone and converting it to cortisol in an attempt to free up glucose because your cells are sending the signal they need fuel, but when cortisol and insulin reach the cell, it may resist these hormones and not receive the glucose.

So this seems to be a negative feedback loop, and part of correcting it may be sensitizing the cells to insulin through other means such as ALA, or metformin, which increase AMPK.