Top Supplements to Heal Adrenal Fatigue
Guest: Evan Brand, CFMP, NTP, CPT
The purpose of this presentation is to convey information.
It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or cure your
condition or to be a substitute for advice from your
physician or other healthcare professional.
Wendy: Hello, everyone. Wendy Myers here from Liveto110.com. Today on the
Medicinal Supplements Summit, we will be talking about adrenal fatigue and
the best supplements to take to heal adrenal fatigue.
This is a very common epidemic of anyone that’s dealing with fatigue or any
other health issues. Your adrenals, after a while of too much stress and
nutrient deficiencies and toxic metals, begin to fatigue and don’t produce as
many sex hormones and stress hormones like cortisol as they should. And
then people don’t feel well on many different levels as a result. Very important
to take care of your adrenals. And that’s what we’re going to be talking about
today on the summit.
Today, my friend and special guest is Evan Brand. Evan is a certified
functional medicine practitioner, nutritional therapist, and personal trainer
who is passionate about healing the chronic fatigue, obesity, and depression
epidemics. He uses at-home lab testing and customized supplement programs
to find and fix the root cause of a wide array of health symptoms.
You can get a free copy of his stress solutions eBook and a free 15-minute
functional medicine phone consultation at his website Notjustpaleo.com.
Evan: Hi, Wendy. Thank you. The honor is all mine. I’m really looking forward
to this, and this is going to be an awesome event that’s been needed for a
decade.
© Live to 110 LLC. All rights reserved.
1
Wendy: So why don’t you tell us—we’re going to be talking about adrenal
fatigue and the best supplements to heal adrenal fatigue. So let’s talk first
about depression and how that is a leading epidemic just to segue into
adrenal fatigue.
Evan: Sure. Like many of us, including you and myself, we’re all wounded
warriors out here as practitioners. So I was deep in the rabbit hole with
depression, going through college. And I’ve talked with you about that several
times, and the gray clouds that were emanating over my head on a daily basis
began to really take a toll on. And I was unable to focus. My brain fog was
continuing to increase. My energy levels were awful. My sleep was horrible. I
was wired but tired. I had weird skin issues, another type of symptoms, that
just didn’t make sense.
So the depression was just a tip of the iceberg. I later found out that I had
some adrenal fatigue issues going on, multiple parasite infections, Candida
overgrowth as well. So I’ve really had the whole run-of-the-mill symptoms with
no real explanation for several years by going to the conventional medical
professionals.
The depression epidemic is massive. The Center for Disease Control is now
saying that this is the number one leading cause of disability in the United
States. And this has just changed over the past decade or so. So I’m convinced
that since the invention of the iPhone, part of our social isolation, combined
with the continued mineral depletion of our soils and chronic stress has really
accelerated this whole depression epidemic.
With depression, you have a lot of other symptoms and conditions including
adrenal fatigue that I’m sure we’ll get into.
Wendy: I absolutely agree. I think depression and adrenal fatigue are huge,
huge problems in my own client population. The majority—really 98%—of my
client population has adrenal fatigue, and it’s caused by so many underlying
factors, including toxins and metals. It’s very, very important to really focus
supplementation on healing your adrenal glands because they affect so many
other health issues in the body. It’s like a domino effect. If they don’t work,
you have a lot of other problems in your body.
Why do you think that so many people get misdiagnosed with chronic fatigue
or other new diseases?
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
2
Evan: That’s a great point. First, we have to look at what the mainstream
medical model does. And typically, they’re going to prescribe a drug or a
surgery. With the issue of adrenal fatigue, it’s not recognized by medical
professionals.
I can’t tell you how many letters that I have from different clients sending me
a message from their mainstream physician that says, “Adrenal fatigue is not
a real condition. It doesn’t exist.” And they refer them to a psychologist or a
psychiatrist where they’ll get prescribed an antidepressant medication. And
they’ll be told that this is all in their head.
For me, the business model of the Big Pharma is at play here because there is
no drug that is going to fix adrenal fatigue.
Secondly, the testing measures that they use would not recognize adrenal
fatigue. If you go to your doctor and you say, “I suspect adrenal fatigue.” If
they don’t roll their eyes at you, what they’re going to do is they’re going to
send you to an endocrinologist which at that point they’re going to take a
blood serum cortisol measure. And that’s equivalent to you touching the
sidewalk in the middle of the day and trying to estimate the forecast.
It’s completely inaccurate and it doesn’t give much information in terms of the
hormonal rhythm. So I may use a blood test in conjunction with an adrenal
profile that’s done via saliva. However, a lot of times these people are getting
recommendations just based on one blood test snapshot. So the misdiagnosis
of chronic fatigue usually comes because at that point you can be prescribed
some type of stimulant.
So whether this is Adderall or a lot of times other stimulants like Vyvanse can
be prescribed for people that have chronic fatigue to really just hype up the
nervous system which in a lot of cases is going to shove people even further
into the rabbit hole because we’re pushing that sympathetic mode of the
nervous system.
Whether it’s fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, depression, all of these diagnoses
have drugs that are associated with them, but none of them are addressing
the root cause which is the adrenal issue and the whole HPA axis dysfunction
in the first place.
Wendy: That is 100% the reason why I am hosting this summit: to educate
people about supplementation and vitamins that they can take that heal the
underlying root cause of their health conditions versus the Big Pharma-driven
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
3
medical model where you’re only going to get a medication. And you have to fit
the criteria and symptoms have to fit something that is prescribed a
medication. And adrenal fatigue does not fit neatly into that model.
You have to be very, very careful. Of course, people need medications for
certain things, but most health conditions can be incredibly addressed with
proper supplementation and even reverse completely by nourishing the body.
Thank you so much for making that point.
Let’s talk about how the adrenals relate to many symptoms people struggle
with, including fatigue, their mood, motivation, and even their memory.
Evan: We have to look at the brain. So we look at the adrenal glands first:
these small, walnut-sized glands that sit on top of the kidney. If we break
down the word ad-renal, that means “on top of kidney.” So it literally means
“on top of kidney glands.”
These are what are supposed to help us get through about three minutes of
stress maybe once or twice a week or so, where in those three minutes,
prehistorically, we would’ve run from a bear and we would’ve escaped to see
another day. Or the bear would’ve gotten us and we would’ve been dinner. Or
maybe the third scenario: we would’ve chased the bear and we would’ve had
dinner for the family. That short duration and high intensity of stress is over,
and then everything goes back to normal.
Now, we’re stuck in 24 hours of stress throughout the entire day, and we’re
never able to shut off. At this point, we begin to wear out many different parts
of the body. The adrenal glands, typically they get looked at and people say,
“Oh, you’ve run out of hormones.” It’s not quite that.
We have to look at the brain. So the brain essentially realizes, “Here’s what’s
going on. I’m providing you with cortisol, this stress hormone, to get away
from this bear or to chase this bear. However, I keep giving you cortisol, and
you keep burning the candle at both ends. You’re staying up too late. You’re
on your iPhone at night before you go to bed. You’re overworked. You’re not
getting outside in nature. You’re going to eat your body away with all of this
cortisol which is a catabolic—meaning “break-down”—hormone.”
So the brain basically takes the reins on the sled here and sort of pulls you
back or pulls back the horse and says, “Look. You’re going to have to slow
things down.” So this is when some of the weight gain can happen. This is
when some of the brain fog can happen. This is when some of the muscle pain
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
4
or achiness that you never had before starts to happen because the body is
trying to slow you down to prevent you from basically blowing a gasket.
It’s kind of like driving a car in first gear on the highway. It’s not going to
work. You’re going to blow an engine, so you better slow down before that
happens.
So the body really does try to protect us, and a lot of times our body is not
against us. A lot of people have a lot of hatred around their body. Like, “Why
can’t I just get rid of this weight?” Or, “Why can’t I get rid of this issue?” A lot
of times the body is trying to help you by slowing you down and making you
less motivated to work out because you’re so nutrient-depleted you can’t
handle a CrossFit workout.
So the brain comes into play here because the brain is down-regulating the
production of cortisol to basically try to help you. With that, other parts of the
brain are affected too.
If you’ve been operating in this high chronic stress states, there are two pieces
of the brain that we’ll talk about. One is the amygdala. This is the fear center
in your brain. It’s very centrally located in the brain, and this is what helps
you and acts as a Rolodex to determine what is a valid fear and what is not. A
lot of people in the modern world are ridden with anxiety issues among the
fatigue.
The most recent statistics are estimating about 17 million just in the United
States alone have some type of anxiety disorder. This amygdala is actually
going to grow in size and sensitivity when you’re under this chronic stress.
Me personally, Wendy, when I was in the movie theater, my wife and I were
watching Captain Phillips, a movie where Tom Hanks is the captain of a ship
and these pirates come on the ship and commandeer it. And it’s very violent.
There was a lot of gunfire and things like that. I had a panic attack in this
movie theater. And I could barely walk down the stairs to get out of the movie
theater. I’m telling you it was insane.
I got to the bathroom, and I tried to put some water on my face and just relax
a little bit. And I realized, “Wow, I just had a panic attack. Something is not
right with my nervous system.” So that’s when I actually ran an adrenal test
and figured out that I was in some pretty deep adrenal issues. I was in big
trouble.
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
5
Wendy: I’ve had the same experience where I got to the point where I couldn’t
watch the news because my stress response was out of proportion to the
situation. I really had to watch the stressful movies or things of that nature
because my system was so overloaded it couldn’t handle it. So I completely
identify with that.
Evan: Wow. Well, I’m glad I’m not alone. So that was the real red flag to me
that something was going on in the brain. So I started looking into the brain
and figuring out how it was getting affected. You can find that the amygdala
grows—this part of the brain.
These are the type of clients that you and I have where they say, “Now I’m
snapping at my children when I used to not do that,” or, “My husband—his
fuse is just really short and he just snaps at the drop of a hat now.” A lot of
times we become very irrational people because we are stuck in that primal
survival mode. So we’re unable to think rationally.
Another piece of research shows that the prefrontal cortex, the front part of
the brain that’s most new to human evolution. That’s what helps us feel
sympathy and empathy and creativity and things like that. This part of the
brain is going to have less blood flow because we’re going to be shunting all of
the blood flow towards the more reptilian part of the brain which means we
need to run from this bear. Which there was no bear; it was just a violent
movie.
Then thirdly—so I guess three parts of the brain, Wendy—is the hippocampi.
The hippocampus. There’s one on each side of the brain, and this is the
memory center. This is actually the better analogy for the Rolodex. This is
what converts memories from short term to long term.
A lot of things that we go through in our daily life may not be important, but
some of the things we need to store into long-term memory. They can’t do that
if your brain has been bathed in cortisol. A lot of autopsies are being done on
brains. And the hippocampi are starting to look like Swiss cheese because the
cortisol is literally eating away the brain as an acidic hormone, if you will,
eating away this piece of the brain.
I’m not quite sure if there’s 100% direct link between adrenal fatigue, these
cortisol issues bathing the brain, and Alzheimer’s or dementia, these other
neurodegenerative diseases. But there’s definitely a strong link because we do
see that these parts of the brain are degenerating. So it’s not just a light
matter to take when people joke about, “Oh, I’m so adrenally fatigued.” It’s a
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
6
real big deal. So when you’re forgetting your best friend’s name, you’re
forgetting where you put your keys, it’s time to really start digging deeper and
start healing from this.
Wendy: Fatigue is such a huge part of this. Anyone who feels tired, you just
don’t have the energy that you used to, you’re in some stage of adrenal
fatigue. People I think really need to focus on healing their adrenals. And let’s
not forget nutrition. When the adrenals are nutritionally depleted of minerals
and other nutrients they need to function, they’re not going to work for you.
Let’s talk about the supplements and the nutrition that are necessary for
healthy adrenals.
Evan: Nutrition is always the starting place. A lot of people—and maybe you
and I are guilty of this at some point—just want the quick fix. That’s what our
culture has been bred to think about. We have a symptom or we have a
disease. Give us the drug that’s going to help us treat it.
So that approach works in a way with functional medicine where you can look
at a lab test and you can come in with a nutrient. But supplements are
supplements, so the nutrition has to be dialed in. Some of the foundations
that I like to have clients have in place are not skipping meals.
There’s been a huge craze lately with intermittent fasting and ketogenic diets
and cyclical carbohydrate diets. But a lot of times, these people that we’re
talking with and working with, they’re so adrenally fatigued and nutritionally
deficient already, especially in their minerals, that if they’re skipping a meal,
they’re actually missing an opportunity to get minerals and vitamins and good
fats back into their body.
For the right person and the right amount of stress at the right time in their
life, they may be able to do intermittent fasting or some of these more
advanced nutritional strategies. However, most people can’t afford to skip a
meal and miss out on these nutrients.
I really try to have people eat three square meals per day, getting about a
palm-sized portion of some type of good fat and protein in. So whether that’s
some coconut oil with some organic pasture-raised meats. Or if they’re just
convinced that they need to be a vegetarian or a vegan, at least trying to get
them to get some type of chicken eggs or duck eggs just to get some good fat
and protein into the diet. That’s going to act as a really good stabilizer to their
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
7
blood sugar because you can’t heal adrenal fatigue if you don’t have stable
blood sugar.
A lot of people they are more hypoglycemic under adrenal stress, so they’re
going to have a lot more peaks and crashes with their blood sugar throughout
the day. So you may eat a meal—and I’ve been there, done that. I remember
going through some of my own treatment. I would eat a meal and I would feel
hungry an hour later even though it was something that I considered a pretty
balanced meal.
So that’s something we really have to watch out for is watch out for a lot of the
dogma around nutrition that says, “You can’t snack. You need to only eat at
certain hours of the day, etc.” If your fuel tank’s empty, you’re going to have to
fill it back up.
Wendy: I 100% agree with you. I don’t think people with adrenal fatigue
should fast. You can feel your adrenaline go up when you’re fasting, and that’s
taxing on the adrenals. I’m dead-set against juice fasting, long-term fasting,
intermittent fasting for anyone with adrenal fatigue.
Let’s go back to what specific supplements and even brands do you think are
needed to heal the adrenals.
Evan: That’s a great question. So rhodiola rosea is one of my favorites. Wendy,
I’ve probably beat the drum with you about this herb for a long time. Rhodiola,
sometimes you hear it called golden root. This is an herb that grows in really
harsh climates, much of the arctic, Scandinavia, the Alps. It’s a really pretty
flower on it. It’s a really pretty yellow flower on top of Rhodiola. It deals with
very harsh climates.
The phenols and the flavonoids and the alkaloids and the rosavins and all of
these different pieces of this plant are derived because of its harsh
environment. So a lot of the natives in these regions, they’re used to using
Rhodiola ancestrally to help them get through really harsh climates.
So Rhodiola is in the category of adaptogens which help the body adapt to
stress. The cool is about adaptogens in generally is you have the ability to
adapt to emotional stress. So whether it’s a boss at work that you really don’t
like, whether it’s physical stress in terms of your exercise routine, or whether
it’s more environmental stress, such as you’re getting exposed to a lot of hot
and cold climates. Rhodiola is something that can help you across the board
for all of those.
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
8
If I may, I’ll tell a story about how I really started integrating Rhodiola and
how it changed my life. I was working as a natural plant manager at a park
system. Basically, I was taking old farmland and converting it into public park
space. We were taking a lot of invasive species of plants, and we were getting
rid of them so that other plants could come and grow.
So I was on my feet eight hours a day. I was usually lugging around a
chainsaw. I was driving a four wheeler. I was in the forest all day, every day. I
loved it. My stress response was healthier than ever. I was still stricken with
fatigue at the end of the day, and I didn’t want to be.
Now, granted, anybody who lugs around a chainsaw 30 hours or 40 hours a
week is going to be tired. But I didn’t want to accept that. So I began taking
rhodiola rosea about 500 mg of it daily. Within just a few days, which there’s a
study on rhodiola that showed even after three days of supplement, people
that had life stress had an alleviation of the symptoms. So I felt it as well just
in a couple of days, but I took it for months and months. And it really
transformed my perception on supplements.
I thought, “This one single herb. I didn’t need some fancy formula. Just this
one herb was enough to get me through my physical labor.” So that’s a good
starting place.
Wendy: Do you like ashwagandha, which is another adaptogenic herb?
Evan: I love ashwagandha. For certain people, since autoimmunity is such a
big issue that it’s hard to say chicken or egg, but adrenal fatigue clients they
often have some autoimmunity going on too. It just depends. Sometimes I can
use ashwagandha with no problem. Since it is in the nightshade family,
sometimes people do have trouble with it and we have to stay away from it.
And we have to look at other herbs like American ginseng or we have to look at
things like eleuthero which is also called Siberian ginseng and use those
instead.
Wendy: And what about vitamin C? I think vitamin C is pivotal in healing
adrenal fatigue. What are your thoughts?
Evan: Oh, yeah. I love vitamin C, Wendy. I take two grams of it a day. You
asked about brands. Obviously, like many of the other practitioners and
speakers on this event, I have a whole brand of products. Something I use
every day is called Vitamin C Tonic. It’s two grams of vitamin C.
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
9
Now, the distinction I want people to make when they’re looking for vitamin C
is whether you’re actually getting a mixed ascorbate or whether you’re just
getting plain ascorbic acid. The low quality vitamin C supplement that you’re
going to get if you go to, say, Walgreens, you’re going to get the brand called
Emergen-C which we’re probably all familiar with. And all that is, is ascorbic
acid which is only one version of vitamin C where the absorption rate is not
that good.
Now, in that product that I’m referring to a lot of times you may get fructose or
sucralose or other type of neurotoxins in that formula. So you really want to
look for supplements that are using ascorbic acid, calcium ascorbate, and
magnesium ascorbate. So the multiple forms of vitamin C, and then with that
you want to have the citrus bioflavonoids. Because just these vitamins in
isolation, they don’t have quite the same synergy and the same bioavailability.
Meaning you may take two grams, but you may not absorb two grams.
I personally take vitamin C every day, and it’s something that I have on every
protocol that I’m helping people with adrenal issues just because the vitamin
C is so essential. A lot of it is found in the adrenal gland. Without it, your
results are going to be limited.
Wendy: Are there any other supplements that you think are really, really
important to heal adrenal fatigue?
Evan: I like to try to keep it simple too and make sure that people are getting
in good omega-3s. So a lot of us are fatty acid deficient, and if we tried to get
enough omega-3s, we would have to eat so much fish that—which is your
specialty—we would get mercury toxic. And we would have heavy metal
issues.
Generally, taking one to two grams per day of omega-3s is something that I’ll
put in place too. A good triglyceride form of fish oils to help support these
hormones and act as cofactors. So if you open up your fish oil supplement
and you smell it, if it smells fishy it may be rancid. So what you want to look
for in terms of supplement quality with fish oil is you want people to be using
the triglyceride form. So this mimics the more raw fish oil itself.
Cheaper supplement companies, they’re going to use a form called ethyl ester
which is typically going to be rancid before it even hits the store shelves. If
you’ve ever taken a fish oil supplement and you burp and it tastes like fish,
it’s garbage. You might as well throw it away. You want to get a form that does
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
10
not cause the fish burps which is going to be that triglyceride form. So I use
that in all my protocols as well.
Wendy: I personally really love the Life Extension fish oil. I forget the exact
name of it. It might be Life Extension Omega-3s, but it has sesame lignans in
it that help to preserve the fish oil. And it just seems like a really amazing
product. It’s one I recommend to all of my clients.
Evan: That’s great. Designs for Health is one of my go-to companies. They
have a lot of open sourcing in terms of where they’re getting their products,
making sure that it’s pure. Because heavy metal toxicity is something that I
know you talk a lot about, and it’s a valid issue for when you’re looking at fish
oil products.
So you want to make sure your product has actually been molecularly distilled
which I going to remove some of the PCBs and the other toxins that are out
there in the ocean and these fish.
Wendy: I think it’s very important that you brought up the issue of fats
because the adrenal glands need cholesterol in the diet to produce hormones.
And that’s what they do. They produce estrogen, testosterone, progesterone,
and they have to have cholesterol to do that. Definitely you want to get your
healthy meats in and your healthy fish as well, fish oils.
Evan: Definitely. I’m sure, Wendy, you and I both have seen dozens of clients
that were ex-vegetarians or vegans, and they have some of the worst adrenal
rhythm profiles I’ve ever seen.
Wendy: Yeah. When I was vegetarian and vegan for about two years, that’s
when my adrenals and thyroid completely crashed. I had the hormone levels of
a menopausal woman because you just don’t get that cholesterol. And meat is
very rich in minerals. You need minerals for the adrenals to work properly,
and you’re just not getting that with those types of diets.
Evan: Absolutely.
Wendy: Unfortunately. And so let’s talk about adrenal glandulars. These are
very, very popular with a lot of practitioners for use in healing the adrenals.
Can you talk about the theory behind why people use those and why perhaps
you don’t recommend those for most people?
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
11
Evan: Sure. So the idea of adrenal glandulars comes from a little bit of the
Chinese medicine philosophy that whatever is lacking you want to give. If you
have heart issues, give heart extract. If you have lung issues, maybe give
lungs. I’m not sure if the lungs are even a real one. But the same thing with
the adrenals. Back in the early 1900s, there were some experiments being
done where adrenal glands were being taken out of cats.
So a guy named Pottenger—last name of Pottenger—he was doing a lot of
research taking adrenal glands out of cats and seeing how they responded.
And what he discovered is that the cats that had their adrenal glands taken
out they were very unhealthy, and they weren’t able to actually adapt to their
situation. So they had malnutrition issues. Many of them died. And we
discovered back then, “Ok, something’s going on.”
So this began the early process of creating adrenal glandular substances
where you would take adrenal glands from various animals. Cows could have
been one. I honestly can’t remember, Wendy, what animal we first started
trying to extract these from. I want to say it was bovine in nature or possibly
lamb.
But we would take these adrenal glands out and use a process to try to extract
the various materials inside of these adrenal glands. Now, this can work and a
lot of people have decent results from adrenal glandulars. But in my
experience, it pushes people a little bit too far.
So if I can use the analogy of Synthroid or synthetic thyroid hormone. If the
gas pedal has already been floored because you have a go, go, go lifestyle and
you add in synthetic thyroid hormone, you may be able to adjust your thyroid
measurements on your blood work, but you may still have symptoms. And
this is common for adrenal issues too.
You may get thrown on an adrenal glandular, and maybe the lab result will
change a little bit. But you could be pushed into anxiety or your symptoms
just may not change at all. So I’ve experimented with adrenal glandulars
personally when I was pulling myself out of adrenal fatigue, and I didn’t feel
very well on them.
So it’s not to say that you can’t have success with them. I just prefer to let the
body heal itself by providing the raw materials that we discussed from the
nutrition, providing some of the good fatty acids, the zinc, the minerals, the
vitamin C, and the adaptogenic herbs. And let the nervous system essentially
work itself out as opposed to just coming in with the hammer. If the only tool
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
12
you have is the hammer, then everything’s going to look like a nail. So if all
your experience with is glandulars, that’s what you’re going to go towards.
But with the adaptogens, the body is going to be able to self-regulate and this
whole HPA axis that we’re talking about—this brain connection that talks to
the adrenals and thyroid—that system can self-regulate if we provide all the
materials that it needs.
Wendy: I just want to stress I think everyone is different. Everyone has very
different genetics and tolerances and different points in their health on the
health parameters and health conditions that they have. And I personally have
had really good luck and really good results with using adrenal glandulars
myself.
But I absolutely agree with you. Some people, it definitely overstimulates
them. They have anxiety, heart palpitations, trouble sleeping, etc. But I
personally had great results with them, and I have good results with them
with my clients but not with everyone. And some people need to take a tiny,
tiny little bit, and other people can take a very large amount and benefit a lot
from them.
But like I said, I have had many clients with your same experience where
there’s too much gas on the pedal. I absolutely agree.
Evan: I may revisit glandulars in the future, so I try to remove any bias or
dogma. And I totally agree that a lot of people can do well with them. I may
revisit them in the future, but for now, the adaptogens have been really
amazing for helping me and other people.
So I think just always being open and talking with your practitioner, if you are
working with someone like myself or Wendy. If you’re not feeling better, then
talk about are there other options? Can we change our game plan? Because a
lot of times you may get stuck and you only get told there’s one option. But
just knowing that there’s options can be a huge sigh of relief.
Wendy: And I have some clients that are just stage III and adrenal fatigue.
They have zero adrenal functioning, and adrenal cortex glandular can be really
helpful to give them some adrenaline, get them some energy, get some of their
enzymes working. And that’s critical in their healing. Some even have to go on
prescription Florinef, etc., if they’re just not functioning at all.
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
13
I really love Professional Health Products. They’re a New Zealand grass-fed
glandular. I think those are amazing. If anyone wants to try them, I think
those are kind of the way to go. But there are lots of good glandular
companies out there.
Evan: Biotics Research, they’ve got some good glandulars too.
Wendy: Absolutely. Yeah, I love that company. Let’s revisit conventional
medicine. And why aren’t the adrenals ever looked at by conventional
medicine and only the thyroid?
Evan: Once again, we have to look back at the drugs that are typically
recommended. So like we talked about, there’s not an option for adrenal
drugs. There is no patented adrenoid, synthetic adrenal hormone. There is
none that exists currently that I’m aware of. So there’s not really an option.
Even if mainstream medicine knew how to recognize adrenal issues, there’s no
drug to sell. Where, thyroid issues which are affected by the adrenals, that’s a
very quick fix for a lot of doctors. They’ll run the TSH measurement on your
blood, and they’ll see whether it’s up or down. And they’re going to add in a
drug to address it.
But what the problem is, is that the adrenals are going to be the first pillar
that’s going to be affected, likely before the thyroid. So if you just go in and
you just treat the thyroid which is more of a downstream issue and you
haven’t treated the adrenals which are more of the top of the food chain issue,
you’re still going to have symptoms. And I can’t tell you the number of people,
even being on Armour or some other type of natural thyroid medication, they
still have symptoms. They can’t get rid of the weight because the adrenals are
still not in check.
Hopefully that breaks that down a little bit, but also, like I mentioned earlier,
the testing measures are just not there. So the blood measurement’s the only
one. And the salivary model of taking four adrenal hormone measurements
throughout the day, that model is still not as popular as it should be even
though there’s a lot of good research behind it.
Wendy: Yeah, I think it’s a problem because anyone going into their doctor—
like I’ve had the same experience. They go to their doctor. They’re tired. They
say, “I’m tired. I have trouble losing weight. I have brain fog.” The doctor will
immediately check the thyroid and instantly put you on thyroid medication,
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
14
and that can really kill the adrenal glands. It can really push the adrenals
even more into adrenal fatigue. It’s very hard on them.
Can you discuss that a little bit?
Evan: If you are already having your gas pedal floored, the solution is not to
come in and try to just jam your foot a little bit harder on the gas pedal.
You’re going to have to find a different solution. If you continue pushing this
pathway by staying on the thyroid hormone, a lot of times people will begin to
become resistant to the thyroid hormone.
We can almost have resistance to almost every hormone. Cortisol resistance is
a real thing. Insulin resistance, which may listeners may be familiar with in
terms of not being able to lose weight, you become resistant to the message of
insulin. The same thing can happen for other hormones.
Even my grandparents, they’re on synthetic thyroid medication. Their
measures in terms of their blood work look okay. They look decent, but they’re
still continuing to put on excess body fat. So we have to just really change the
approach and zoom out a little bit. And say, “Hey, we can’t just go straight to
the thyroid. We really need to look at the brain. We need to look at the gut.”
Because what we didn’t talk about is the thyroid, the adrenals, and the gut,
all of these and the brain they’re all going to be connected together.
So a lot of times we may run a stool test, and we may find a parasite or other
type of infection that was caused. Because when you were in this high stress
state, whether it was caused from pushing this thyroid pathway too hard or
just the damage to the gut lining that cortisol created. When you get a
condition known as leaky gut, you’re more susceptible to bacterial infections
and Candida and parasites.
So a lot of times people have adrenal fatigue caused from that. So I just ran
some stool testing on myself, and I showed up with two parasites at the same
time. So chicken or egg—not quite sure—but this is another factor that really
has to be played in before you just go and jump on thyroid medication.
Wendy: Yes, and we’re not telling anyone to get off their thyroid medication to
heal their adrenals. Absolutely necessary for many people. But it’s just you’ve
got to be in tune with your adrenals as well and feeding them what they need
is our point.
Evan: Absolutely.
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
15
Wendy: So let’s just run down quickly all of the underlying causes of adrenal
fatigue.
Evan: That list could be probably what 5000 things long, Wendy? Let’s cover a
lot of things that people have in common. Things that I’ve seen in my practice
but things that other people are finding as well. Type A personality is going to
be huge. If you’re someone that is a control freak, you just have to have
everything a certain way or it’s your way or no way. These type of people
generally are going to drive themselves so hard that they’re going to put
themselves into adrenal issues.
Next is going to be too much coffee and stimulants. I know a lot of people are
putting coconut oil and butter and MCT oil in their coffee these days. Coffee is
a stimulant. Caffeine does increase cortisol. So we have to keep that in mind
that even though we may be getting in good fats and we’re getting in organic
coffee and all of that’s wonderful, the problem with too much stimulation on
these adrenal glands, driving catecholamines, your adrenaline and
noradrenaline and all these hormones, it is a real thing. There is a certain
limit that you can do.
Too much exercise. So people that are doing CrossFit. A lot of CrossFit
burnout victims. I just actually spoke with a client before this interview, and
she had an adrenal measure from two years ago that showed stage III severe
adrenal dysfunction. Her whole rhythm was bad. And now two years later,
since she stopped CrossFit, her adrenals are still dysfunctional, but she’s
doing a lot better. So her cortisol sum, her total output for 24 hours jumped
from 14 units in a 24-hour period to 35 which is pretty good. We see that too
much or too little exercise is a big deal.
We talked about blood sugar. So if you’re eating a lot of refined carbohydrates
and your blood sugar is rising and falling, that’s going to stress the adrenals.
When the blood sugar gets too low, it’s an emergency and you’re going to pass
out. So knock, knock, knock on the adrenal glands. You have to start
producing and releasing some more stored glucose from the liver to get that
blood sugar back up. So if you’re constantly doing that, that’s going to stress
out the adrenal glands too.
We talked about low thyroid function. Autoimmunity can be a factory in this
as well.
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
16
Heavy metal toxicity. You and I have talked about this. Copper toxicity is a
real big issue for females especially with the birth control methods that are
used. If you have heavy metal toxicity, that’s a low-grade stress on the body
that can wear out the adrenals as well.
Being deficient in zinc. So the vegetarians and vegans, we’ve discussed them a
little bit. But if you have poor adrenal function to start with, it’s a big cycle
because now you’re not going to have enough hydrochloric acid. So now if
you’re eating your good grass-fed beef, you’re not actually going to be able to
pull the zinc away from the meat and the zinc is important too as a cofactor
for other neurotransmitters and hormones in the body. If you’re deficient in
zinc already, combined with adrenal issues, it just gets worse.
Fatty acids. We talked about that.
And then another one, Wendy, that’s kind of funny but that I like to talk about
is just people that don’t have a light-hearted attitude towards life. People that
take life too seriously. There are a lot of things to worry about in the modern
world, but at a certain level we really just have to laugh at ourselves and try to
pull ourselves away from our stress and our situation. Because if we just
continue to beat ourselves up and we’re harboring negativity and anger and
negative emotions, that can wear us out too.
So a lot of people are familiar with energy vampires. You go around someone,
and they take your energy. Being exposed to those people on a daily basis, if
they’re your coworker or your spouse or your boss, can really contribute to
adrenal issues as well. And I’ve gone through programs with some of my
female clients, and if they’re not getting better when everyone else is, I have to
ask them, “What’s going on?” And a lot of times they’ll finally open up to me
and say, “Well, I’ve been fighting with my husband a lot or I’m just not getting
along with my partner anymore.” And the relationship component is being a
factor too. So nothing is really excluded from your adrenal health.
Wendy: That’s a very, very good point. I think it’s very important to
emotionally detox and do things to de-stress: meditation and relaxation and
just sleeping enough and doing everything you can that you can take the time
to do to just calm your body down. That’s incredibly important to heal the
adrenals.
Evan: I agree.
Wendy: Do the exact opposite of stress.
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
17
Evan: Right.
Wendy: So let’s talk a little bit about where the listeners can find you and do
adrenal testing with you, etc.
Evan: Sure. So thank you for having me, Wendy. People can just go to their
favorite search engine, and if you just type in Evan Brand—brand like brand
name—you’ll find me and my website. And my clinic’s website, it’s
Notjustpaleo.com. I call it Not Just Paleo because I started out with a paleo
template which really helped move the needle and started eliminating some of
my symptoms, but I eventually hit a wall.
So about 95% of people I work with already have some type of whole foods
nutrition plan. They’re eating organic. They’re staying away from chemicals.
They’re trying to meditate and do yoga. Ninety-five percent of people already
have a lot of that stuff dialed in, and we’re just looking for that extra 5%. So
treating adrenal issues, identifying them, looking for parasites, gut infections,
everything. It all helps, and it’s all important.
So they can find out more about setting up a free call with me back at the
website as well.
Wendy: That’s a very good point because I have the same thing with my client
population. They’re doing everything right just like I was for many, many
years, eating a great diet and exercising and taking care of yourself. But I
think it’s proper supplementation that pushes the needle into being able to
heal their adrenals and heal their body.
Evan: Definitely. And a lot of people ask that. “Can I just eat real food, Evan?”
And the answer is in the modern world, no. Honestly you can’t. It’s just not
enough. If I wanted to give you the amount of vitamin C that we have to
supplement with, I can’t even count the number of oranges or other foods to
try to get vitamin C. You’d be eating 50 oranges a day. Don’t quote me on that.
I don’t know the actual number, but point being, even organic food, it may not
have chemicals in it which is good. But we can’t prove the mineral or vitamin
content.
So to try to just eat a little bit more broccoli to get some more sulfur to
support detox, for example, that’s just sort of a short-sighted approach in the
modern world. And it is unfortunate, and it definitely is a heavy thing to
realize. But there is hope and that’s why there are companies out there that
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
18
really do care about people, and it’s not just about profit. And human health
is first, and then profit is second compared to the conventional model where
profit is first and human health is somewhere further down there on the list.
I encourage people to stay hopeful and know that there are options and you
can get better.
Wendy: Thank you so much, Evan. I really appreciate all your wisdom and
insight. And hopefully, everyone out there will have the information that they
need to arm themselves and take the right supplements to heal their adrenals.
Evan: Definitely. Thanks for having me, Wendy.
Wendy: Everyone, thank you again for joining the Medicinal Supplements
summit. Of the 54,000 dietary supplement products sold today on the market
only one-third have some level of safety and effectiveness that is supported by
scientific evidence. That’s shocking. You could be taking supplements, doing
more harm than good. Do yourself a huge favor.
Please take home this life-changing information by clicking on the banner
beside or below our discussion. And please share with your loved ones. I know
that so many of you have friends or family members out there that are tired
and getting diagnosed with health conditions and are on multiple medications.
They need to nourish their body. They need to learn about supplements. So I
would appreciate you sharing with anyone that you care about.
My name is Wendy Myers, and my hope is that you experience vibrant health,
the vibrant health and energy that you deserve. And that all begins with
taking the right supplements for you.
© Live to 110, LLC. All rights reserved.
19