Adrenal Fatigue: Enhancing Quality of Life for Patients with a Functional Disorder

T he human organism is bombarded with an incredible variety of stresses at any given time. Stress can be categorized in an equally dizzying number of ways. There are both chronic and acute stressors. There are somatic stressors that push the body away from homeostasis. There are psychogenic stressors that seem to be triggered at the slightest provocation. An elaborate system of hormones and neurotransmitters (coupled with the human penchant for becoming upset about nonphysical stressors) engenders psychogenic stress in human beings more than in any other species of animal.* There are two basic kinds of psychogenic stress (1) rational (fear) and (2) irrational (anxiety). Regardless of the nature of the stress—mental or physical, rational or irrational—the body responds to all stress in a fairly predictable manner. In the early 1930s, Selye1 termed this predictable pattern of response the general adaptation syndrome. Both conventional and nutritionally oriented health care providers principally utilize and share the same biomedical model of stress and its physiologic effects. However, the two schools of practice diverge when it comes to diagnostic methodologies that are used to identify subclinical cases of adrenal dysfunction and the modalities used to treat these patients.