How Bovine Adrenal Supports Chronic Fatigue?
Posted by Fruit Of Spirit on
What is bovine adrenal and how does bovine adrenal work to support chronic fatigue?
Chronic fatigue syndrome is a debilitating disorder that characterizes by presenting disabling fatigue, muscle pain, joint pain, and tiredness after activity for more than 6 months without improving with rest.
In the world we live in, we are in constant movement surrounded by stress factors during our daily activities. And there is no better feeling, after a long day at work, than getting home for some comforting rest. Therefore, feeling exhausted while getting proper rest time could trigger some alarms in our daily routine that can make us suspect of this condition.
Although the origin and cause of this disorder are not well known by scientists, several recent studies have shown that it involves alterations in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. The investigators suggest that this disorder could emerge as a response to physical and psychosocial stress, infections, immune dysfunction, or nutritional deficiencies that affect the adrenal function and levels of cortisol.
What are the adrenal glands?
The adrenal glands are two crescent-shaped glands located at the top of our kidneys. They are responsible for the release of important hormones such as cortisol, aldosterone, DHEA, androgenic steroids, norepinephrine, and epinephrine.
All these hormones play an essential role in regulating our immune systems, our response to stress, our metabolism, and other crucial functions in our organism.
Therefore, our adrenal glands and cortisol levels provide an essential regulating mechanism when facing stress in our lives and regulating energy levels.
People with chronic fatigue and other stress-related disorders have shown lower levels of cortisol, suggesting that the income of cortisol could improve the symptoms.
How to diagnose chronic fatigue syndrome?
Experts estimate that this condition affects more than 2.4 million Americans. Furthermore, in the world, there are tens of millions of people suffering similar symptoms that do not enter into the definition of chronic fatigue. However, almost 90% of the cases with this complex illness are not diagnosed today.
Chronic fatigue is a complex condition that can be easily masked by other systemic manifestations such as fibromyalgia syndrome, cardiovascular diseases, and chronic mononucleosis, among others.
In addition to these systemic diseases, the professional must evaluate the patient for some psychiatric conditions such as anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress, as these types of disorders are commonly found in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome in almost 50% of the cases.
To obtain a diagnosis, the clinician must exclude every other medical condition known with similar symptoms first. Later, to establish a diagnosis, the patient must have experiencing tiredness interfering with daily activities and severe fatigue for at least six months. Also, the patient must show at least four of the following symptoms:
- Sore throat
- Difficulty to concentrate or recall past activities
- Headaches
- Muscle and joint pain without swelling or redness
- Sleep disturbances
- Troubles waking up in the morning
- Lymph nodes swelling and pain
Nonetheless, if you are feeling tired, exhausted, weak, or depressed, you must take all of those symptoms seriously. Make sure to evaluate all options with a professional and the appropriate evaluation and tests before establishing any treatment on your own.
Also, consider that there are multiple conditions with similar manifestations that can affect our quality of life and productivity at work. In some grave cases, some disorders can even thread our lives if neglected.
What is the treatment for chronic fatigue?
Currently, the is no cure or direct treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome. However, there are different treatment options for most symptoms that can relieve the patients’ pain and discomfort.
After consulting your doctor, there are several alternatives to choose, among which we could list the following ones:
- Consider improving your nutrition and diet with highly energetic food full of vitamins, magnesium, antioxidants, and amino acids.
- Try to set a daily or weekly goal for physical exercise.
- Improve your pillow, your positions during sleep, your environment, and other sleep habits.
- Consider lowering your coffee intake.
- Finally, you can also consider taking adrenal supplements.
What is bovine adrenal?
Bovine adrenal, also known as adrenal extracts or adrenal cortex, is an extract made from the adrenal glands of cows. This extract turned into a medicine alternative that people can ingest orally or intravenously for different purposes and diseases.
Despite the lack of scientific evidence on its ability to treat some conditions, experts suggest that adrenal extracts can represent a relevant treatment alternative for people with low cortisol levels.
Among their multiple uses, scientists believe that bovine adrenal improves and boost energy and memory. Therefore, expert suggests that this supplement could make a significant difference to treat fatigue, stress, and other conditions.
Bovine adrenal works by replacing the decrease adrenal gland function with the animal extract. However, the exact mechanism is not entirely understood.
Most people take adrenal cortex orally to boost the cortisol level in the organism while fighting the equilibrium disorders.
Creating a complete treatment plan for chronic fatigue syndrome
Understanding how this condition works and how to detect it is one of the most crucial steps for every person.
If you have not been feeling right in the past months and cannot rest or concentrate properly, make sure you visit your doctor as soon as possible. Ask him to perform a complete examination to discard other types of conditions with similar symptoms.
Once you have a definitive diagnosis, consider improving your eating and sleeping habits, as suggested above. Remember that the human body is a complex machine, filled with complicated systems and regulations. Thereby, sometimes assessing just one problem is not the solution.
Consider how you feel and how is your body responding to the changes you make and the treatment you are taking. Bovine adrenal is an important alternative treatment that can improve your energy and decrease your fatigue. However, taking care of other stressful elements in your daily routine could improve its results.
References:
1. Fukuda K, Straus SE, Hickie I, Sharpe MC, Dobbins JG, Komaroff A. The chronic fatigue syndrome: A comprehensive approach to its definition and study. Ann Intern Med. 1994. doi:10.7326/0003-4819-121-12-199412150-00009
2. Raff H, Sharma ST, Nieman LK. Physiological Basis for the Etiology, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Adrenal Disorders: Cushing’s Syndrome, Adrenal Insufficiency, and Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia. In: Comprehensive Physiology. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.; 2014:739-769. doi:10.1002/cphy.c130035
3. Fries E, Hesse J, Hellhammer J, Hellhammer DH. A new view on hypocortisolism. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2005. doi:10.1016/j.psyneuen.2005.04.006
4. Turan T, Izgi HB, Ozsoy S, et al. The effects of galantamine hydrobromide treatment on dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate and cortisol levels in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. Psychiatry Investig. 2009. doi:10.4306/pi.2009.6.3.204
5. Grundy HM, Simpson SA, Tait JF. Isolation of a Highly Active Mineralocorticoid from Beef Adrenal Extract. Nature. 1952. doi:10.1038/169795a0
6. PARKER AJR, WESSELY S, CLEARE AJ. The neuroendocrinology of chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. Psychol Med. 2001. doi:10.1017/s0033291701004664
7. Hicks CS, Mitchell ML. The Treatment of Addison’s Disease by Whole Adrenal Gland: (Section of Therapeutics and Pharmacology). Proc R Soc Med. 1935.
8. Papadopoulos AS, Cleare AJ. Hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis dysfunction in chronic fatigue syndrome. Nat Rev Endocrinol. 2012. doi:10.1038/nrendo.2011.153
9. Holtorf K. Diagnosis and treatment of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis dysfunction in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and fibromyalgia (FM). J Chronic Fatigue Syndr. 2008. doi:10.1300/J092v14n03_06
By Dr. Samuel P.H DDS