About Adrenal Glands

You may have heard of these if you have adrenal fatigue.

Everything I’ve seen online goes into some serious science. In wikipedia, every other word is something that needs to be looked up.


Here’s the low down for you. I always find something easier to understand if a picture has been painted. Hopefully this story will help you work out the complexities of what your adrenals do.

This is not 100% scientifically accurate. To simplify things for general understanding, some specifics have been abbreviated (for lack of a better word.)


Here we go...
The adrenals are located right above your kidneys, which are in your stomach area.

They are told by the “pituitary” - which is in your head - what to do. But the Hypothalamus tells the pituitary what to do...

So, it works like this. 

The hypothalamus (we’ll call it Dr. H) is in the control center for the hormones. He gets information from your body that is energetically yelling “HELP ME!”

So Dr. H pages the pituitary (Ms. P) on his CRH or Corticotropin-Releasing Hormone, “Yo! Ms. P! We’ve got a problem out there. Notify the A-Team (aka Adrenals) asap!”

Ms. P jumps up, gets into her emergency vehicle - The ACTH (Adrenocorticotropic Hormone) and zips down a little pathway to the Adrenal Land. I mean Gland - where she looks for someone on the A-team.

There’s two main places to look. Inland or the outer reaches. The inland portion is called the Adrenal Medulla. The outer portion is called the Adrenal Cortex.

And before we continue our story, I will tell you about the Adrenal Lands:

INNER PART

The Adrenal Medulla has two villages, situated between the mountainous Catecholamines: Epinephrine* and Norepinephrine* (It was called North Epinephrine, but everyone’s accents had them calling it Nor’ Epinephrine, so now it is like it is.) The catecholamines do the whole flight or fight thing. Too much is not a good thing. (You might be familiar with them as adrenaline. Adrenal. Ine. Adrenaline.)

Now the Catecholamines are a unique place.

To get there, you have to travel through Tyrannasaurous Scenery (shortened to Tyrosene* - lots of dinosaurs), down to Level Dope Mine (shortened to L-Dopa* - druggies. Lock your doors.) and into the Dope Mine (now called Dopamine* - there’s cops everywhere, just don’t get our of your car. Most people are pretty much euphoric in Dope Mine, due to the drugs. Can get creepy.) Then you’ll travel through Norepinephrine before you get to Epinephrine.

Anyway, people in Adrenal Medulla are all lovey dovey there as you can imagine, having gone through Dopamine. Everyone says that they have a lot of heart. (I personally like it there.) I mean, you go there and people are running out of the Smooth Muscle Center to say hello. It can really get your heart rate and breathing up. I mean you get seriously bombarded!

OUTER PART

So, the Adrenal Cortex is the outer part of the Adrenal Land. It’s where the Elders and the Courts are. The Elders are often stoned and so are called “Aldosterone.” The Courts are called the Courts of All or “Cortisol.”

But, lets get to the layout. It has three zones. The Zone of Glames and Losers (Glomerulosa), The Zone of Fascination (Zona Fasciculata) and the Zone of Ridicule (Reticularis).



In Glomerulosa, that’s where all the elders (Aldosterones) hang out. They know who they are and which group they hang out (Glams or Losers) with and are content with that. They don’t, however, like for things with the blood to get too relaxed. You know, they understand that you have to keep engaged with life or you die!

They should have instant messaging with The Kidneys, but they don’t. You see, the kidneys will tell them if they are low on blood pressure or blood volume. And like good elders, the Aldosterones take care of things. But to get the message, the kidneys send a message through the Rinin, which goes into the blood and turns into Angiotensin I.

This goes all the way to the Lungs (Why to the lungs, I ask you? Doesn’t make any sense, see?) where it meets Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme (ACE) which will turn the Angiotensin I into Angiotensin II. This will hit The Adrenal Cortex mail system, which will deliver the message to the Aldosterones in Glomerulosa.

I mean, really. Couldn’t they have made it simpler?

So, the Aldosterones will start doing their target pistal practice - shooting the salt tubules. There’s a big ‘ol mineral mine up there (called the Mineralocorticoid) and they’ll shoot at the tubules, targeting the salt minerals and get that into the blood, which increases water and electolytes and blood pressure. Sometimes Potassium gets in they way and they’ll dump that out in the Ur-mine (of course, it’s been shortened - to Ur-ine.)
In Fasciculata, you’ll find the Courts of All. The Cortisol oversees EVERYTHING. I mean, they regulate the glucose metabolism of every single little cell. (Glucose metabolism is what we would call cookie distribution, you know, like you get cookies from your mom if you’ve been good kind of thing. So Cortisol is also considered a Glucocorticoid. Like the overseer of cookies.

One of their main missions is one you may have heard: Free the Amino Acids! Free the Amino Acids! They’ve taken on the cause and do this by working with protein breakdown (used for ATP production). And, you know, they like their sugar cookies (glucose),

So they’ll actually send the amino acids that they’ve freed down to the liver to turn into glucose. (used for ATP production).

They also breakdown triglycerides in fat tissue (adipose tissue). Also used for....oh, I’m sure you’ve guessed it - ATP production.

They also reduce inflammation. So, you know, when the people get all ticked off about something and start protesting and get into an inflammatory state? The Corisols jump in and say. You. Must. Stop.

When they have a little too much power, you know, when there’s a lot of them, they get overwhelmed and they turn off. Then all sorts of bad people come in with poisons. And all the Cortisols are depressed. When these times occur, it’s called the Depression of the Immune Response.

However, when they go nuts and start being super controlling, they create Crushing Syndrome. It’s like they CRUSH you. But, of course, they call it CUSHings Syndrome. They drop the R. When they do this, all the muscle gets eaten up and the body fat gets moved around.

So, I’m sure you can imagine the Cortisols getting overly zealous as they move all your fat from your arms and legs and shove it into your face (moon face), your stomach (hanging), or the top of your back (buffalo hump). Then there are symptoms with it. If you look back, you could probably figure out what they are: hyperglycemia, mood swings, osteoporosis, weakness, hypertension, susceptibility to infection.

If Cortisol and Aldosterone hang out and get all lazy together (hyposecretion), they just lay around, lounging - looking like they’re hanging out on the beach. “Ahh, de sun.” they say as they imagine the sun coming out “Ah, de sun!” (Addison’s Disease). They’re lethargic. Wanting to look good in their bathing suits, they get anorexia or just weight loss, vomiting & nausea. As you can imagine, their muscles would be weak and they have hypoglycemia. People who have this tend to look tan! (Thus the sun connection). They end up having too much potassium an dnot enough iron, low blood pressure and stuff that’s wrong with their hearts.

(Just a reminder of how information gets to the Courts of All/Cortisol: When there isn’t enough of cortisol in the blood, the Neuro Secretary tells Dr. H. Dr. H uses his CRH to contact Ms. P in the Anterior Pituitary. She hops into her ACTH to shoot on down to the adrenal cortex, where she tells her peeps there to send out more cortisol. When levels are high enough in the blood, she heads back in her ACTH and tells Dr. H that he can ease up on his use of his CRH.)

And then there’s The Zone of Ridicule - Reticularis. This is where the secondary sex hormones live. It’s the Zone of Ridicule because they are “only” the secondary sex hormones. They are Estrogen and Androgens. They are incredibly important, but they just aren’t given the respect that they deserve. I mean, they’re not even near the sex organs. And of course, they get ridiculed for it. so their at reticularis. It’s just sad, is what it is.

CONCLUSION

So, when your adrenals are shot, there’s a lot going on. It affects your blood pressure, breathing, sex drive, metabolism, blood pressure, mood.

It’s a lot. 

And one of the things that sets it off most....stress. So watch your stress levels.


WHAT YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT

Meditate (boring for some, I know.)WalksAnything calming, where you can shut your brain off.Vitamin B5.Adrenal Support Vitamins and Supplements


Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenal_gland

Textbook of Medical Physiology - 11th Editionby Guyton & Hall. Leave the Adrenal Glands and Go Home