Ok, if its not enough that cigarette smoking can be killing you and your children, now there is proof that it can be killing your pets!

According to the California Environmental Protection Agency second hand smoke exposure causes thousands of lung cancer and heart disease deaths among nonsmokers every year.  126 million Americans who don’t smoke are exposed in their homes, vehicles, workplaces, and other public areas.

This is one of the biggest issues we had to deal with in moving to Michigan (a state that does not yet ban smoking in restaraunts) and it is still a challenge, though we fully support patronizing establishments who take such responsibility on for themselves.

Carolynn MacAllister of Oklahoma State University states, “there have been a number of scientific papers recently that have reported the significant health threat secondhand smoke posts to pets.  Second hand smoke has been associated with oral cancer and lymphoma in cats, lung and nasal cancer in dogs, as well as lung cancer in birds.”

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to believe this to be fact, though I suppose ignorance can cloud anyones perception.”

In Health,

R-n-A

Alright, aside from symptoms of adrenal fatigue, are there any testing that can accurately diagnose for more refined treatment?

You bettcha! 

Historically the most common way to test someones adrenals would be through a morning corisol blood draw reading.  Where this is very accurate it is not the most convientent, you get pricked by a needle, and you are only testing one time during the day.
What would offer more accuracy would be testing 4 times a day, though having a blood draw this often would be really inconvienant.  Healthy adrenals should have cortisol levels high enough to get someone up in the morning and gradually decrease during the day until bedtime where it is not too high to prevent someone from sleeping.

The best way to measure these levels would be via saliva testing.  A saliva test allows you to accurately measure in the convience of your own home or office saliva hormone measurements of both dhea and cortisol in the morning, afternoon, early evening and at bedtime.  This in turn gives a very complete profile of how a persons adrenals are working throughout the course of a day.

An interesting note, one study revealed that 80% of breast cancer patients had a corisol profile exactly the opposite of healthy levels, i.e.- low in the morning and gradually increasing to high at bedtime.

In our practice we begin with QRA (quantum relflex analysis) a form of kinesiology to get a reading on ones adrenals.  This goes off of the strong or weak premise.  If they are week, we test them on what nutrients and at what dose will make them stronger.  The same goes if they are overactive.

For more information on adrenal fatigue we recommend a great book adrenal fatigue by Dr. James Wilson, and information on saliva testing, ZRT has a great website at www.salivatest.com. 

There are many symptoms that can be linked to adrenal fatigue, you might have a few, or you might have many.  Signs, symtoms and consequences of stress and adrenal fatigue are:

Lack of stamina and energy, weight gain, alcoholism and drug addiciton, low thyroid, decreased sex drive, chemical intoleraces, excessive fears and apprehensions, emotional fragility, sleep disturbances, decreased immune system, issues with blood sugar (often low), excessive use and cravings of high fat, sugary foods and caffeine, problems with bone metabolism (osteoporosis), hormonal imbalances (pms, menopausal symptoms), and so much more.

Do you see any of these symptoms in you?  If a few have just started popping up it is time to get proactive and begin implementing measures of stress management and nutritional supplementation NOW!  If you have many of these and have for a long time, wait no more, find yourself to a qualified practitioner to diagnose and treat your problems before they get any worse.  Remember the above are mostly symtoms, symptoms that can lead to much worse issues later on. 

You will see later on recommended measures that you can take to support your adrenals and in our book, Secrets to Conquering the Inner Game of Health, you will find our recommends section where you can find such qualified practitioners as well.

Be patient though, stress is accumulative and it normally does not happen overnight.  It has been building for years and we cannot expect to cure it overnight.

A very intersting point was made by Dr Pamela Smith in her latest book, Demystifying Weight Loss, A concise guide for solving the Weight Loss Puzzle, that the most stressfull jobs are; construction worker, secretary, laboratory technician, waiter or waitress, machine operator, farmer, house painter, mid-level manager, and forman/supervison.

What do all ofthese jobes have in common?, she states.  LACK OF CONTROL!

In our next post we will recommend our general recommendation on nutritional supplements and stress management techniques to support and conquer the adrenal fatigue.

In Health,

 R-n-A

It is our belief that adrenal fatigue is prevelant in a large population of our country and our culture..it’s almost fashionable.

Because of the depth and importance of this topic we will be giving this to you in 2 or 3 parts.

Adrenal fatigue, one of the most under addressed health imbalances, practically ignored by the allopathic medical system, has broad ranging ill affects to your health.

The adrenal glands are two little glands that sit in the region atop of the kidney’s.  They are the glands that keep us alive and get us out of trouble in times of stress.

The issue is that we were “designed” to handle stress in a fight or flight response.  Take for example long ago, hunter gatherer, foraging for food and hunting animals.  But there comes that tiger ready to pounce, we need these little glands to orchestrate the chemical equation to get us the heck out of there. 

But then we get away, tiger is gone, and we can re-equilibrate ourselves and our adrenals get to kick back out of hyper mode.  Nowadays though, the tigers are always on our backs; responsibilities, bills, over-committing, etc.  Because of this our adrenals get overworked and depleted in the important hormones that they produce.

What hormones am I speaking of?  Cortisol and DHEA.  As our bodies go through an initial element of stress both cortisol and DHEA increase in response.  As the stress continues the body does all it can to protect cortisol so cortisol begins to steal from DHEA and DHEA begins to decrease.  Finally the body has exhausted its sources from DHEA and possibly other hormones such as progesterone and testosterone and it can rise no longer.  Cortisol then finds itself in the basement.  This is when you cannot peal yourself off the sheets to get up in the morning, lack of energy, stamina and motivation.

In the next additon we will speak of what other symptoms there are for adrenal fatigue and the impact that it has on ones health.