Adrenal health

What is the difference between hormonal imbalance and adrenal imbalance?

Our bodies produce many different kinds of hormones, but let’s face it — when most people think of hormones, they think of sex hormones! So it follows that when we say “hormonal imbalance,” we are generally referring to the imbalance in the ratios of our sex steroids: estrogens, progesterone and testosterone.

It can be a bit confusing, because the adrenal glands also produce and secrete hormones — including sex hormones, but also “stress hormones” (which, by the way, manage a lot more than stress). What’s more, because adrenal imbalance can disturb estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone levels, symptoms of these two different imbalances are often similar. These overlapping symptoms can be extremely problematic for women who are under a lot of stress — especially when they reach midlife. At this stage, symptom strength may be magnified by menopause, so it can be harder to trace those symptoms to a single source.

How does that happen? Our adrenal glands are primarily responsible for our response to any and all forms of stress, a mechanism crucial to our survival. But these glands also have an important but lesser known secondary role: balancing and producing sex hormones. As our ovaries enter “retirement” in middle age, the adrenal glands help replenish and sustain our supply of sex hormones. But as we approach menopause, this secondary adrenal function may be compromised, especially if we’ve spent years living on the “brink” of stress. Over the years, a high-stress lifestyle causes the adrenals’ functional reserves to be steadily directed toward producing “survival” hormones such as cortisol. This generally reduces production of our “feel-good” sex hormones and this is how women end up feeling so “spent,” with such intense symptoms of hormonal imbalance!

Adrenal imbalance and hormonal imbalance are also connected by areas of the brain known as the hypothalamus and the pituitary. Both help control feedback messaging loops within the endocrine system, receiving and relaying information about whether to increase or decrease hormonal output by the thyroid, adrenals, ovaries, and other tissues. When women are under a great deal of long-term stress, these feedback loops at first cause the hypothalamus to call for more and more adrenal cortisol, a situation called cortisol dominance. But over time, this demand saps the energetic reserves of not just our adrenal glands but of other important glands, too, including the ovaries. That results in further imbalance and can generate even more symptoms.

If you’re on the fence about which form of imbalance might be dominating your life, refer to the following lists for guidance.

In our experience, women who note a lot of overlap between these two sets of symptoms will be able to more effectively heal the overall imbalance by addressing the adrenal dysfunction first. This from-the-top-down strategy is effective because our adrenal glands help balance our sex hormones, so healing your adrenal issues may also resolve your overall hormonal imbalance.

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Last Modified Date: 04/15/2011