Ari Whitten
Adrenal fatigue is cited by many "gurus" for chronic fatigue. They blame low cortisol levels, even though an unignorable body of science shows that total daily cortisol production is NOT lower in those suffering from chronic fatigue than their healthy counterparts. Many who would have you believe that cortisol is the sole reason for chronic fatigue obviously have no idea what roles cortisol plays in the human body. Here's what you need to know about cortisol's relationship to chronic fatigue and adrenal fatigue.
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[00:00:00] Hey, hey, welcome back to another episode of super you Meridian. We have a great show planned for you today. They're all great shows So today we're going to be joined by re Whitten to discuss whether or not adrenal fatigue is a real thing. He's got some really interesting opinions about it and quite frankly a lot of his opinions.
[00:00:55] I agree with. And I think that it's an important discussion [00:01:00] to have. Before we get started. I have to thank our title sponsor All American Pharmaceuticals in EFX sports right now, you get six of their top-selling products. Absolutely free by going to superhuman radio dotnet and clicking the EFX Sports Banner Ed enter your name and address.
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[00:01:38] Ari Whitten, how you doing? I am excellent. How are you? Carl? Wonderful. Wonderful. Thanks for being here today. Yeah, my pleasure. So. Every now and then I see an article about a drink what way before we do that I have to tell people your background first. So what what made you interested in energy in The [00:02:00] Human Condition to begin with what you did you have problems when you were young or anything like that?
[00:02:04] Yeah, it's an interesting story. I'll I'll give you the super quick version so we can spend as much time as possible talking about, you know, kind of the science rather than my personal story, but I I've been interested in nutrition and and fitness since I was very young literally about 14 years old and you know typical teenage boy stuff, you know, I wanted biceps and abs to get girls and.
[00:02:30] My older brother was a personal trainer and a bodybuilder. And so I kind of was into that whole stuff and and I think I was uniquely obsessed and maybe uniquely gifted for my capacity to understand that stuff from a very early age. And I mean really obsessed maybe maybe slightly on the Spectrum level of Obsessed.
[00:02:53] You know, I was I think I was reading college level physiology and nutrition textbooks. By the time [00:03:00] I was 15 or so wow, and and I've really been studying it ever since I'm 35 now and the obsession has continued now for for over 20 years. So my interest for a lot of those years early on was very Fitness fat loss muscle gain focused, but then in my mid-20s.
[00:03:22] I got mononucleosis sometimes called in other countries the kissing disease or glandular fever. It's basically it's usually Epstein-Barr virus and and that knocked me on my ass. Basically. I was pretty incapacitated by that for about six months and I. Basically, what was chronic fatigue syndrome and I realized you know, I was a young fit guy and been an athlete all my life and I realized that when you have no energy your life really [00:04:00] sucks.
[00:04:00] If it gets bad really fast and pretty much everything suffers to an extreme degree your relationships your ability to perform in your job. You know friendships family girls everything suffers in your life when you don't have energy and that's what put it on my map. It could sort of in my head which which made me shift my focus away from you know, the Fitness & fat loss and muscle gain stuff, you know towards of an obsession with energy levels and kind of building out a science of that and there were other you know stops on this road.
[00:04:37] I did a bachelor's degree in kinesiology. Went to medical school for two years realized I hated it then went to a Ph.D. Program did all three years of Ph.D program in Clinical Psychology, and then decided not to pursue a. Career in top in clinical Psychotherapy and instead to do what I do now, which is start, you know, the energy blueprint [00:05:00] brand so, you know, there's kind of formal education and certifications and all this kind of stuff mixed into that.
[00:05:07] But really, it's just been this obsession with the science of energy levels and then what and we can talk more about this, but when I got when I started to really dig into this stuff, I found that. You know conventional medicine doesn't really have much to offer most people dealing with chronic low energy levels and fatigue in 90% plus of cases.
[00:05:33] They're not going to find any any particular diagnosable condition. So most of these people are kind of, you know, if they go to a conventional doctor, they're just not. Yeah, but I want to I want to I want to say something new I really would challenge a medical office doc see the idea that they can't find.
[00:05:50] Or they choose not to really look I think is the distinguishing factor in that designation because [00:06:00] chronic fatigue is a is a broad umbrella. It's a symptom. Yes, and and it and the etiology of it can be varied from one person to the other and because of that the medical officer doxy ignores it because it is it just too.
[00:06:16] Too much trouble to figure out the six different potential things that contribute to a person's product disease. I mean chronic fatigue syndrome and it just easier to give them a drug like Gabapentin which makes them numb to life and they don't even realize that they're missing anything anymore.
[00:06:36] Yeah, very true. And also I would add that for a long time chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia were thought within conventional Medicine by most most conventional medical doctors to be basically hypochondria. They didn't even recognize it as a real condition because in the vast majority of cases nothing shows up on a standard blood tests, so they basically said hey nothing's [00:07:00] wrong with you.
[00:07:01] The reason that you're debilitated and in bed and can't move and can't function is just either that you're depressed or you're a hypochondriac and it's really only been I'd say in the last 10 years that science has really started to identify some of these layers of dysfunction and done various kinds of tests where they've now figured out that hey this is actually a very real thing and this isn't just hypochondria.
[00:07:27] So that's one layer and then you know, I kind of I've always been into the Natural Health world since I was a young teenage kid and then so I kind of believed in the whole adrenal fatigue story. I was teaching that for many years, you know, this wasn't at all that I came into this skeptical of adrenal fatigue.
[00:07:44] I was a huge proponent of adrenal fatigue for many many years. And then ironically it was actually kind of how conventional medicine. Brushes off adrenal fatigue as pseudoscience and nonsense that made me kind of want [00:08:00] to prove them wrong and dig into the science and prove that adrenal fatigue is a real thing and when I tried to dig into the science, basically, I found that the science did not support the theory of adrenal fatigue.
[00:08:14] Well, so let's address clinical adrenal fatigue, which is usually like Addison's. Disease or something like that. And this is this is a complete failure of the adrenal glands and they they cease to produce adequate amounts of cortisol. They cease to produce adequate amounts of DHEA and women they cease to contribute estrogen production in men.
[00:08:40] They ceased to contribute to stay strong production small amounts of testosterone made in the adrenal glands. So when we see. What would be categorized as true adrenal insufficiency? We see a lack of these hormones on a diurnal basis throughout the day, but [00:09:00] what most people consider adrenal fatigue is in my humble opinion and I'm asking you this question is really dysregulation because they have high cortisol levels at night which means the adrenal seem to work fine at night.
[00:09:12] Yeah, well if there's so there's a lot of layers and what you just said and and one thing that I want to do is let's not conflate true adrenal insufficiency or Addison's disease with adrenal fatigue because they are absolutely not the same thing and and and really totally unrelated. So true adrenal insufficiency is a real thing and it's also an extremely rare thing that has nothing to do with.
[00:09:41] You know with with basically burnout syndrome or chronic fatigue syndrome, the we don't see true adrenal sufficient insufficiency or Addison's disease in that context. These are unrelated conditions, right? So wins in adrenal insufficiency absolutely does exist. It's a rare [00:10:00] condition. And is really not related to this discussion almost at all because you know, if you have true adrenal insufficiency, basically you're going to need to take medication for that and that's what you need to pursue.
[00:10:13] Obviously. You should also try nutrition and lifestyle interventions and so on but my discussion here and my analysis of the research is not about true adrenal insufficiency. It's basically about this whole concept of adrenal fatigue. Which is the idea that chronic stress of various kinds sort of tax, the adrenal glands which are part of the stress response system that produces a hormone called cortisol and that over time that chronic stress sort of wears out the adrenal glands.
[00:10:42] And then I as a result of that you get low cortisol levels and then those low cortisol levels result in the symptoms that are claimed for this. This this this disease called adrenal fatigue or the syndrome called adrenal fatigue, which is characterized by, you know, depression and [00:11:00] anxiety and obviously fatigue and low libido and sleep issues and cravings for sugar and salty foods and these are kind of the things that are claimed as symptoms of this syndrome adrenal fatigue.
[00:11:11] But again, the idea is chronic stress wears out the adrenal glands. Then you get these symptoms. And so that is absolutely not related to True adrenal insufficiency or Addison's disease and and yeah, hopefully so that's the first layer that I want to clarify is that we're talking about adrenal fatigue not true adrenal insufficiency, which is a very rare thing, right?
[00:11:37] Okay, what was the other thing in my the context of what I stated? I kind of tried to set the table and this idea that people who seem to suffer from adrenal fatigue when they do a diagonal cortisol test what we see is low morning cortisol, but very high evening Court assaults which in and of itself would disqualify the concept of fatigue because fatigue means not [00:12:00] producing and in reality they are producing their just producing it at the wrong times of the day.
[00:12:05] Yeah, so well, so there's there's even a couple layers of nuance here. So go what one is. In cases where people with let's say burnout syndrome or chronic fatigue syndrome or you know, there's a few other recognized fatigue syndromes that actually have research on them as opposed to adrenal fatigue can talk more about that.
[00:12:27] But you know that vital exhaustion and stress-related exhaustion to sort of there's research on these things looking at cortisol levels in those conditions. So first of all, I want to be clear that. Virtually, all of that research finds perfectly normal cortisol levels in people with these conditions.
[00:12:48] So that's the first big layer to understand interesting because that does that hold that disqualifies the whole concept that the adrenals are contributing to this problem at that point exactly. Right? And that's [00:13:00] you know, basically when. When research is clearly not able to show a difference in cortisol levels between people with let's say full-blown stress-related or burnout syndrome or chronic fatigue syndrome and normal healthy people without any of those symptoms what that is clearly telling you is that adrenals and abnormal adrenal function or cortisol levels cannot possibly be the cause.
[00:13:26] Of those symptoms like, you know to rephrase this. Let's imagine there's some condition with these sets of symptoms that say, let's say you have a itchy left knee and pain in your right big toe and you know, you wake up at 3:30 a.m. Every morning and whatever five other specific symptom criteria and then somebody has a theory that says.
[00:13:50] I believe these this constellation of symptoms is caused by this specific virus, you know, the Coxsackie B virus or whatever. Okay, and then [00:14:00] let's imagine so all of that sounds great. This sounds like a totally legitimate Theory then let's imagine there's 25 years of research exploring whether those symptoms are caused by that virus and virtually all of that research.
[00:14:17] Finds that in people with those symptoms. They have they do not have that virus present. What we would immediately conclude is that this virus cannot possibly be the cause of these symptoms, right? So, I mean the whole Theory would immediately be discarded by anybody who is intellectually honest and who's actually who actually cares about the science.
[00:14:38] So what I'm saying is that basically this exact thing has occurred. When it comes to adrenal fatigue, we have over 20 years of research of people exploring the link between these fatigue syndromes and cortisol levels the vast majority of that research finds that in the vast majority of people they have perfectly normal cortisol [00:15:00] levels and HPA axis function that's hypothalamus pituitary adrenal function and and it is indistinguishable from normal healthy people without these conditions, so.
[00:15:11] Anybody who is taking an intellectually honest look at that research will not conclude cannot possibly conclude that abnormal adrenal function or cortisol levels are the cause of these conditions. Okay. So let me ask you a question. So about eight years ago. I did an interview with the scientist who was pointing out a new type of heart failure.
[00:15:34] That was a precipitated through excessive cortisol levels and norepinephrine levels for long periods of time causing the cardiomyocytes to become less responsive due to glucocorticoid receptor either down regulation or insensitivity. So we often talk about hormone levels in the blood, but we know that there's receptors [00:16:00] that make the magic happen could this.
[00:16:04] Phenomenon actually be more related to changes in the landscape of the effectiveness of cortisol. Not necessarily the presence of cortisol. Yeah. It's a good question. Yeah, a couple things I would say in response to that. So yes, it is possible to have some abnormalities at the receptor level and and issues there and cortisol resistance and things like that.
[00:16:32] However. I think overall what the body of evidence suggests is that the role of cortisol as a primary cause of most most disease including you know, the various fatigue syndromes has been way overblown now that the second layer to this story is that interestingly if you actually look at the research on on chronic stress and and if and what it does [00:17:00] to cortisol levels.
[00:17:02] Contrary to what the adrenal fatigue theory predicts which is a chronic stress wears out the adrenal glands and results in results in low cortisol levels. If you look at virtually all of the research on chronic stress and and or chronic diseases of various kinds select various kinds of cancers and heart disease and you know schizophrenia and you name it like any particular disease or any form of chronic stress chronic pain anything like that.
[00:17:31] In general what that research finds is either normal cortisol levels or slightly elevated cortisol levels. It almost never finds lowered cortisol levels. So now having said that what you're talking about here is. And what a lot of the research legitimately is talking about is negative effects detrimental effects from elevated cortisol levels over a prolonged period of time and and there is actually a definitely a [00:18:00] legitimate element to that which is yes, if you do have chronic stressors or chronic pain or things like that that are elevating cortisol levels all the time for months and years that absolutely can be expected to result in various kinds.
[00:18:17] Of detrimental effects, including what you know, this guy's specifically looking at with regards to heart health interesting. We have to take a quick commercial break. This is getting fascinating. I have to gather my notes because it's really intriguing and the reality is that a large portion of the population today suffers from some form of chronic fatigue including myself since I.
[00:18:41] Ended up with iron overload, which is a contributor to chronic fatigue by the way, but it has some Hallmark symptoms that make it easy to diagnose. We're talking with Ari Whitten. His website is a plethora of great information the energy blueprint.com. There's a complete article with video. [00:19:00] About is adrenal fatigue real that's worth your attention of you think you suffer from adrenal fatigue because the sooner you eliminate the idea that adrenal fatigue is the reason you feel the way you do then you can actually start chasing potential real reasons that you feel the way you do stay tuned.
[00:19:18] We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, so obviously. You're digging around has to have shown you some points that you can connect that may be applied to a large majority of people who think that they suffer from adrenal fatigue, right? Yes, definitely and and we can go there and we can talk about, you know, I'm sure some people listening or wondering that they're probably saying.
[00:19:52] Well, I've actually had my salivary cortisol tested and it showed that I do have low morning cortisol levels. So what's the [00:20:00] cause of that and write we write we can we can certainly talk about that as well. So one thing that I do want to mention before we get into that is that. I've actually done and you mentioned my article on my site.
[00:20:17] I've done literally the most comprehensive analysis of the research on the subject that has ever been done and I've compiled. Literally every study that has ever been conducted on the subject of the relationship between cortisol levels and HPA axis function and these fatigue syndromes. I've compiled them all on in that article on my site and including the screenshots of the actual grass the quotes of the conclusions of.
[00:20:45] Of the studies and things like that. So it's all there. So if anybody skeptical of this conclusion and you know, they really believe in adrenal fatigue. I would really strongly encourage you to go through all of those studies for yourself. I've already done the months of hard work to. [00:21:00] To compile all that information and dig through thousands of studies to find that they're all there.
[00:21:05] There's about 79 studies. I have the conclusions from all of them as well as the conclusions of like the big picture of all the systematic literature reviews, which is the highest level of scientific evidence where they're compiling all of the relevant studies. So that's all there for people if they want to explore it.
[00:21:22] I do want to mention, you know, just like a few examples of. Of specific research that has has has shown what I'm talking about. So there was a study from 2015 titled, you know, no art, no alterations and diurnal cortisol profiles before and during treatment in patients with stress-related exhaustion, and they said quote diurnal salivary cortisol.
[00:21:46] Give a rather poor reflection of the prolonged stress exposure experienced by patients with exhaustion disorder. Such cortisol measurements do not seem suitable as biomarkers for stress-related conditions such as exhaustion disorder or [00:22:00] burnout. There's another one called the neurobiology of burnout.
[00:22:04] They said quote there is no HPA axis dysregulation and burnout another one titled clinical burnout is not reflected in the cortisol Awakening response. They said quote we concluded that HPA axis functioning in clinically diagnosed burnout participants. Seems to be normal another systematic review.
[00:22:25] I'll mention called biomarkers in Burnout. So they compiled all of the data looking at cortisol levels in people with burnout syndrome. They said when taken together among all the studies that investigated HPA axis function and burn. Three of those studies support an increase in HPA axis functions.
[00:22:42] That means elevated morning cortisol levels five supported decrease in morning cortisol levels and 11. So 11 of the 19 studies here did not find any differences whatsoever in people with burnout syndrome [00:23:00] versus. Normal healthy people without these conditions. So I just want to mention some specific research, you know that people can go and look at for themselves.
[00:23:09] You can see the conclusions are absolutely supporting what I'm saying, and that any intellectually honest look at the evidence will show you that the evidence just does not support the idea that an abnormal adrenal function or cortisol levels are causing these symptoms. So. That's all there for anybody who wants to explore well, but you well, you know why none of this surprises me while you're going through this list.
[00:23:32] I'm thinking to myself. Let's let's talk for briefly about what cortisol actually does show everybody thinks that the cortisol is the answer to fatigue issues. But the reality is that it's epinephrine and norepinephrine that play a larger role in liberating cellular energy and. Cortisol, if anybody knows what corticosteroids do cortisol is a bigger player in and [00:24:00] and unleashing part of the immune response, and I've learned this myself.
[00:24:05] Here's an interesting example of cortisol. So I became a frequent user of Afrin because my nose kept getting stuff done. And what I noticed was that my nose was more stuff that night when cortisol was dropping. And sure enough I did some experiments using GH rp6 which causes a spontaneous rise in cortisol levels and I could take a shot of jage rp6 a small shot a hundred micrograms.
[00:24:38] And my nose literally within like minutes the stuffiness would go away. And so I discovered, you know, we cortisol has a role in and playing some of the liberation of glycogen perhaps from muscle, but cortisol directly does not affect energy. Am I off on that now, you're absolutely [00:25:00] right. And so this is actually a very interesting topic because.
[00:25:04] About 30 years ago and I'm spacing on the guy's name. It was Jeffrey something. Let me find this guy's name real quick, man. I have it. I have the guy's name in my article, but it'll come up good. Let's talk about 30 years ago. This guy wrote sort of a seminal book on basically his theory that. Low cortisol levels were the cause of these fatigue syndromes and and then prior to that you have Hans selye Ace research from the 1930s to 50s where he kind of came up with this Theory, you know, he subjected animals to extreme stress.
[00:25:44] And then what he happened to be looking at and sort of based on his theories in the time. And again keep in mind. This is from the 1930s and 50s. This isn't exactly. Recent research he was basically looking at the hormonal responses to [00:26:00] extreme stress. And so what he found is that when animals are subjected to these really extreme stresses like shocking them in their cage and you know making it so they can't do anything about it basically torturing them.
[00:26:11] He found that after a certain period of time certain amount of weeks or months. That they had this kind of hormonal response where cortisol level and cortisol levels and some of the catecholamines that you mentioned increase and then they decrease over time and they get to a point where you know, the animals Health totally declines or maybe they even dies and then prior to that, you know, the hormones decline.
[00:26:35] So he came up with this sort of theory that was sort of the origination of this idea that chordophone that that these hormones and cortisol in particular. Are the cause of those symptoms that the animal is experiencing? And so then this guy Jeffrey something I think is his name wrote a book kind of talking about his theory of these fatigue syndromes being caused by low [00:27:00] cortisol levels and how he was administering Hydrocortisone and that was helping people so he claimed and then we had Into Thin 1999.
[00:27:09] We had James Wilson, right? The book where he first coined the term adrenal fatigue and it was all really based on those guys research. So really just kind of people being enamored with this idea that cortisol is part of the stress response system and it seems to have an effect on regulating blood sugar and doing other things like serving as an anti-inflammatory and affecting immune function and things like that and so because it's part of this stress response system.
[00:27:38] If we have chronic stressors it where's that system out and then that's the source. Yeah, but the idea that it was just cortisol when there's so many of the hormones that play and maybe the stress disrupts the hypothalamus or but the pituitary of both and all Downstream hormones are affected then yes, because stress stress reduces sex hormones.
[00:27:58] So maybe sex hormones are the reason [00:28:00] for fatigue. Exactly, right and I'm glad you brought this up because this this is exactly what I'm getting at is that people became enamored with this particular little sliver of the pie. They became, you know, the body is a very complex system of dozens of different.
[00:28:16] Organs and and hormones and neurotransmitters. There are lots of things that impact on our energy levels. It's certainly not just cortisol. And there's really no research to indicate that cortisol is sort of the primary regulator of our energy levels far from it. So what I am saying along the lines of what you're getting at is is really that people became in and I think a very unwarranted way that was not supported by good scientific evidence.
[00:28:45] Fascinated and enamored with this theory that cortisol is the thing that sort of causing fatigue and regulates her energy. And so that's what all of our energy should be focused on is fixing the adrenals and cortisol levels. And I [00:29:00] think it's been it's been a pursuit in just totally ineffective.
[00:29:09] Therapies that are that are not evidence based because it sounds it sounds to me very much like ancel Keys cholesterol and statin drugs. Yeah, I mean, I think that's another. You know very good when I become thing they become fascinated with this one thing and they ignore their oblivious to everything around it that surrounds it and they're just focused on this one thing and the other reason is because no one was talking about cortisol.
[00:29:36] So, you know, hey, I'm going to talk about cortisol. I'm going to be I'm going to introduce something novel and it just really, you know, Of cortisol is a powerful anti-inflammatory. They give you glucocorticoid drugs to reduce inflammation. They don't give them to people to increase their energy levels.
[00:29:55] You know what I mean? It's not in feta means you know. [00:30:00] Well, I would I would push back a little bit. There is actually something called cortisol dope. Where you know even in elite athletic circles, you know, for example, like lot Lance Armstrong and a lot of the guys on the Tour de France were doing this for a long time.
[00:30:15] You can take corticosteroids prior to your races and it does actually boost performance and Boost energy levels. So there is a legitimate element there where. Some people do actually feel better when you administer but re but re let me ask you a question. So let's this kind of pull from some strings here knowing what we know about the role of what cortisol actually does in the body.
[00:30:40] Yeah, perhaps the energy increases. To what it's actually doing which is intrinsic which is reducing inflammation reducing us edema reducing cellular fluid retention, which has a role on cardiomyocytes and will not just get all muscle tissue from functioning [00:31:00] so it may in fact. People with greater energy production, but it's not directly involved in the energy production.
[00:31:09] It's more involved in the things that sap energy the things that could be considered biological friction that take your energy away from your legs from pedaling to manage inflammation and other problems in the body. Yes. Yeah, I agree and there's lots of different mechanisms of and substances that can Boost energy transiently and make you feel good after you take them.
[00:31:30] And that doesn't say anything about whether those things are good substances or healthy substances or are actually addressing your underlying problems. Like you can take cocaine and and all kinds of stimulants and it'll boost your energy levels and make you perform better temporarily that that doesn't speak to anything as to whether it's actually solving your problems.
[00:31:50] Now, I'll all also mention that the idea that treating people with these fatigue syndromes for example chronic fatigue [00:32:00] syndrome. With hydrocortisone with basically exogenous cortisol has actually been tested scientifically. So there have there have been three studies that have tested this including one study from 2001 or 2002 where they they basically took people with chronic fatigue syndrome and did a randomized controlled study.
[00:32:24] That was also a crossover study meaning they took people who. You know where first the placebo group and then switch them to the the active hydrocortisone group and vice versa. So this is basically as good as study designs yet. And what they showed was that when they tracked symptoms in people taking Placebo versus the hydrocortisone over time.
[00:32:45] There was basically no difference whatsoever in Improvement of chronic fatigue syndrome symptoms in the people taking the active cortisol. Versus the placebo. and you know, [00:33:00] I just had a thought. there is a variety of. of depressive disorders. which are associated with inflammation about one-third of all people who suffer from clinical depression actually have an inflammatory disorder in the blank in the brain that precipitates the.
[00:33:24] They would probably respond well to cortisol to cortisone treatment to establish whether or not their depression is from inflammation. You could probably give them a fairly high dose for a week or two of of corticosteroid and ask them if they feel like their mood changes and if it does they shouldn't be prescribed ssris.
[00:33:47] They should be put on an anti-inflammatory diet. Yes. Well, I definitely agree with you in there. There's a there's a researcher named Charles Ray Zone who's done a lot of work specifically looking at [00:34:00] the role of inflammation in the context of depression and anti-inflammatory therapies and specifically sauna therapy.
[00:34:08] He's looked at in that context and has actually shown that it's specifically the people with depression that have elevated. Very strongly elevated inflammation that actually respond the best to sauna which tends to lower Baseline inflammation levels. So there's definitely a link there. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
[00:34:30] I want to take a break when we come back. Can we start to talk about ways for people to try to fix their own? Problem here because obviously the medical officer doxy has them caught in between those who say it doesn't exist. Those who say it does exist. And the reality is they should be on a completely different path entirely.
[00:34:48] Okay. Yeah. I'm good. Stay tuned. We'll be right back with more of superhuman radio.
[00:34:55] Welcome back. We're talking with Ari Witten and his website is the energy [00:35:00] blueprint.com. That's th e en ERG why there are too easy. The energy blueprint.com you can find this article in full is adrenal fatigue real if you think you suffer from adrenal fatigue or you have chronic fatigue and you're looking for answers why you feel the way you do there's a lot out there and there's a lot of misinformation and what re is done is all the heavy lifting and put together all the research for you and you can educate yourself.
[00:35:27] So. What like I said earlier in the show the people that I've come in contact with who claim to have adrenal fatigue the tired in the morning and wide awake in the evening and I just think in their case, their adrenal function is flipped and there's a lot of reasons that could happen, you know, staying up late eating late at night and all these other things.
[00:35:54] What portion of the people fall into that category and then what portion of the people have [00:36:00] something else going on? Yeah, this is a great question. And I want to there's some Nuance here that needs to be built out. So first of all. I'm not saying what I'm saying adrenal fatigue as a condition is not real.
[00:36:15] I am not saying that cortisol abnormalities. Do not exist cortisol abnormalities absolutely do exist. Obviously, we talked about true adrenal insufficiency where the adrenals genuinely are incapable of producing enough cortisol. That's a real condition, but very rare unrelated to adrenal fatigue now, There are conditions where you have for example, elevated cortisol levels any type of chronic stress for the most part is going to be associated with slightly elevated cortisol levels, but there's also a situation which is what you're referring to which is called basically a flattened by urinal curve of cortisol.
[00:36:57] Or eight sometimes called HPA [00:37:00] axis dysregulation as a broad umbrella term and often what you can see and this applies to a subset of people who have sometimes they have fatigue syndrome. Sometimes they have this curve without any symptoms whatsoever. But you will you will sometimes see lower morning cortisol levels still within normal range.
[00:37:21] We're not talking about true adrenal insufficiency talking about slightly lower morning cortisol levels. And sometimes slightly elevated evening cortisol levels. So the reason this is called a flattened diurnal curve is because normally cortisol is you see a big spike in the morning something called a cortisol Awakening response you get a big surge of cortisol and then it declines over the rest of the day and is low in the evening and at night sometimes you people can get this flat and curved where they don't have a strong of an increase in the morning and they have more in the evening now.
[00:37:54] Evenin miss this scenario and sometimes people will be told this is [00:38:00] generally the scenario where people are diagnosed with adrenal fatigue and told by their physician you have low cortisol levels. Well again, it's not true low cortisol levels. If you measure 24 hour output of cortisol levels, it's almost always the case that these people have normal total 24-hour output of cortisol, but they have slightly lower levels in the morning slightly elevated.
[00:38:22] Evening levels. So the first layer of this if somebody is is truly obsessed with cortisol. The first layer is to say well now that we know that it's not quote unquote adrenal fatigue that is resulting in this that that my adrenal glands are worn out. What is actually causing this flattened diurnal curve.
[00:38:43] Well, there's a few causes of it, but the by far the main thing the most common thing. Is circadian rhythm and sleep disruption. So if you have poor circadian rhythm habits, you don't get daytime light exposure. You don't get morning sun exposure. You don't get [00:39:00] Outdoors much during the day and you're indoors in dim artificial lighting most of the day staring at screens.
[00:39:05] And then in the evenings if you don't wear blue blockers, and actually. You know modify your light environment, so you're not getting so much blue light from artificial light sources like your cell phone and your computer and your TV and your indoor lighting then you have a chronically disrupted circadian rhythm, and we know that that causes.
[00:39:26] Low morning cortisol levels and a flattened diurnal curve. So that is by far the most common cause of that cortisol abnormality. Also sleep disruption is a huge huge cause and we know that sleep disruption is is very common in fatigue syndromes, and we know that literally it's not chronic stress wearing out the.
[00:39:48] If you have their studies where they just ask people to do night shift work, for example for a few nights or they subject people to sleep deprivation for a few nights. You can instantly [00:40:00] create those cortisol abnormalities. I'm not talking about chronic stress for months or years wearing out your adrenal glands.
[00:40:05] I'm talking about a few days of altering your behavior can cause lowered morning cortisol levels. If you disrupt circadian rhythm, you disrupt sleep that will cause it so. Another one of the biggest causes which is extremely common in the modern world is simply being a night owl. Yeah. So there's research looking at night owl Chrono types and it's you know, basically just whether you're more of a night person or a morning person and they compared the cortisol levels in night owls versus morning people and what they show and keep in mind I'm talking about people without symptoms.
[00:40:43] No fatigue syndrome. Just normal healthy regular. Just by being a night owl there are studies showing that you can have half literally half of the morning cortisol levels that a morning person would have so just that one thing by [00:41:00] itself. Just if you're a person who goes to bed at midnight or 1 a.m.
[00:41:03] Or 2 a.m. As opposed to 9 p.m. And you might all be sleep-deprived a little bit and you might also not have very good circadian rhythm habits.
[00:41:17] Are you there? Because I feel like we dropped you just now. Can you hear me Ari? I here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to I'm going to run a quick commercial. I'm going to run a quick commercial break and we're going to reconnect with our a so we will keep them right there. Stay tuned. Welcome back.
[00:41:33] We've got re back on the line. I don't know. What happened. Can you hear me? All right. Yes, I can hear you. Can you hear me now? Yes, I can I can see your big muscular chest to now you disappeared. Okay, so video to we dropped we dropped the internet here at the studio which happens periodically because we have Spectrum which has become the nightmare of my life.
[00:41:53] But anyway you were saying I'm sorry. Do you remember he got dropped off because I don't. Yeah, [00:42:00] so, you know, basically I was talking about the real causes of low morning cortisol levels. Yes. I don't know how much you heard before. I dropped off. Oh, just go and repeat them to be on the safe side Okay, so.
[00:42:12] Basically the most common causes of a flattened diurnal curve and cortisol and low morning cortisol. And and or sometimes elevated evening levels of cortisol is circadian rhythm disruption circadian rhythm. Is this internal clock that we have in our brains. Mostly there's also some peripheral clocks, but we have basically a 24-hour clock in our brain in a part of the brain called the suprachiasmatic nucleus.
[00:42:39] That regulates our sleep and wake cycles and the primary the primary signal that affects that circadian clock and keeps it functioning optimally is light exposure. So the problem is in the modern world that we live in a world where we have very very poor circadian rhythm habits. Very poor light [00:43:00] exposure habits.
[00:43:00] Most of us. Don't get Outdoors much. We don't get morning sunlight exposure, which is the primary thing that times the clock and we. We and we get way too much evening light exposure from artificial light sources TVs computers cell phones tablets indoor lighting all these light sources that are emitting light in the blue spectrum that is affecting our circadian clock and basically telling that circadian clock in the brain, it's daytime the time to be awake alert active energetic right so that chronic, you know, basically that modern light environment.
[00:43:38] And those that that chronic disruption of our circadian rhythm dysregulated our cortisol levels throughout the day we're supposed to have this surge in morning cortisol levels and decline throughout the rest of the day. Well that is largely a function that's regulated by your circadian clock in your brain.
[00:43:56] So when the circadian clock is being chronically disrupted by the [00:44:00] modern world, we live in. Then you it gets reflected in the cortisol levels throughout the day. So quite honestly, I mean if you just consider that and you consider how common it is for people to have poor circadian rhythm habits, it's actually remarkable that most people still have pretty normal cortisol as well and I'll tell you something and I just had a conversation with a buddy of mine that I grew up with.
[00:44:24] I said, you know, I drank a lot of alcohol over the holiday. And for me a lot of alcohol was I probably had two glasses of red wine for five days in a row and I said and it's really amazing how a taxes me and he said yeah, he goes, you know, I really don't notice anything I said, well, you know, he doesn't train he's a great guy.
[00:44:45] He doesn't train he doesn't have to train. He had his a farm he works all day long, but he doesn't train and I said, well, you know, Joe I go to the gym and I test myself. Like 5 days a week and I can see a definite [00:45:00] change in my strength and muscle endurance when I've had a couple glasses of wine the night before.
[00:45:05] Yeah, and so to your point, I think that unless you're one of us who's actually experienced what it feels like to be optimally engaged with your body that your body is literally firing like an athlete. On all cylinders, you have no concept of what it feels like not to be and the analogy I've given for years on this show is if you have a crystal clear glass of water and drop one drop of black Indian ink into it.
[00:45:38] It is very obvious that there is ink in there. But if you have muddy water and you drop ink in there, you can't even tell where the ink went. So if your if your body. Is used to running at 50% capacity. You don't even know you have fatigue because you don't know what it feels like not to yet 100% and that's it.
[00:45:56] That's a great analogy. So yeah, it's it is [00:46:00] absolutely the case that that people who are generally healthy notice those little deviations. So for example, if I have one night, you know where I go out with friends. And and stay out till midnight or 12:30 instead of you know in a crappy light environment and then I don't get to sleep till 1:30.
[00:46:19] And then my sleep is is not as good as normal and not during the normal times. I absolutely 100% notice that in my energy levels the following day and my performance in the gym and yeah, absolutely, right? Why so what when they discovered this, you know cortisol phenomenon, I can't understand why they didn't think about the thyroid because as you point out a second ago just takes it one night.
[00:46:44] It doesn't take a like a lot of disruption. One of the earliest studies. I read on thyroid stimulating hormone dysregulation was probably 10 years ago on new doctors who were interning and they were working three day shifts. And [00:47:00] so someone had the good foresight to do a thyroid hormone test with them and they put them on they watched their shift.
[00:47:10] They took TSH levels T3 and T4 levels upon entering the hospital for their shift and then after each evening of poor sleep. And within one night within one friggin night their TSH dropped by 90% one night of disrupted sleep. Yep. I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, there's there's research on sleep deprivation in the the hormonal impacts of sleep deprivation and it shows widespread.
[00:47:43] Hormonal impact so, you know to your point earlier where you said, you know kind of why are people so uniquely focused on cortisol. It's not as if cortisol is the only thing regulating our energy levels or is even the primary thing regulating our energy levels. This is the case 2 is [00:48:00] that. When you have sleep disruption or circadian rhythm disruption, you have literally dozens of of hormones and neurotransmitters and various, you know, bio chemicals in your body better disrupted from that.
[00:48:13] So it just it doesn't make sense to focus on anyone in particular and say oh this is the the one cause of this of these symptoms it. Year any symptom that you have or condition that you have is going to correlate with dozens of different kinds of biochemical abnormalities. So I'm generally not a fan of the kind of like biochemical reductionism or hormonal reductionism that so many people are trying to do out there where they're saying.
[00:48:43] Oh this symptom is caused by this hormone or that hormone. I think when one thing is wrong in the body, It's never just one thing. It's always a whole system wide dysregulation across multiple systems of the body and involves multiple different [00:49:00] biochemicals. But those are ultimately just the things that are correlates that are signaling molecules in that condition.
[00:49:05] They're not the cause of it the cause of it in this case of let's say the symptoms associated with low energy levels. It's not cortisol levels it. The factors that disrupted the cortisol levels which are affecting not just the cortisol but many many other things for example, mitochondrial function various systems in the brain neurotransmitters, like orexin and various various other neurotransmitters.
[00:49:29] There's there's so many layers of what's going on on a biochemical level. I think it's way more instructive to look at what's going on at the level of the environment and lifestyle right now. I agree with you. So real quick just in like the next 10 minutes or so. If someone suspect or they want to determine whether or not their fatigue is coming from this dysregulated.
[00:49:52] What do you tell people to do and for how long and in order to re-establish appropriate energy levels [00:50:00] during the waking hours of the locomotive period like the scientific industry likes to call it versus the sleep period. Yeah, well, let me let me answer this more broadly. So we've a lot about cortisol and renal function HPA access function.
[00:50:17] Having said all of that, you know, let me go back to what I said earlier, which is that most people the vast majority of people with these fatigue syndromes with energy problems have perfectly normal cortisol levels. They don't have any any cortisol or adrenal abnormalities. So I think first of all it is a mistake to try and fix the fatigue by trying to fix your adrenal function or your cortisol levels.
[00:50:43] Most of the research the most compelling explanation for when somebody actually does have any cortisol abnormality. It's something that is arising secondarily. It's what's called an epiphenomenon usually as a result of circadian rhythm and sleep disruption. And so I don't think that you [00:51:00] want to try to fix the fatigue by fixing your adrenal the back by putting all your energy and focus on to fixing your adrenal function and cortisol levels so that I think that the broader picture.
[00:51:11] What are the if it's not cortisol levels and adrenal problems? What are the causes of fatigue and you know as you pointed out earlier, it's there's multiple different kinds of etiology multiple causes and and and sort of triggers for different people. So the way I break this down is you have circadian rhythm and sleep and light exposure habits.
[00:51:36] Which are a big trigger for many many people with with energy problems. You have nutritional causes deficiencies toxicities just poor diet in general that also relates to gut health and there's a lot of research actually linking things like gut permeability and lipopolysaccharide exposure. That's endotoxin a particular kind of toxin from certain kinds of bacteria [00:52:00] in the gut that are leaking into the bloodstream and excessive amounts.
[00:52:03] And so there's research and chronic fatigue syndrome for example showing that that's occurring and showing that you know people working on their gut health can can reverse or even cure their symptoms and chronic fatigue syndrome. There's also research at the brain level. So there's some research from for example a researcher named a shop Gupta looking at limbic system dysfunction from chronic stress chronic psychological and emotional stress.
[00:52:32] And how that affects the brain and there's also something called a theory called limbic kindling which is basically the idea that the stress response centers of the spur of the brain become kind of hyper sensitized to stress and then you become very very fragile. So I think there's you know brain dysfunction that's occurring gut dysfunction, you know nutritional issues circadian rhythm and sleep issues.
[00:52:57] There's also toxins, [00:53:00] You know, for example heavy metals various other kinds of toxins are directly linked with mitochondrial damage high iron iron iron iron, ii predicted iron as a silent killer of most people over 40 and it leads to a real type of fatigue that is you can feel your muscles ache.
[00:53:20] They predict they burn faster just reaching up and and removing a light bulb over head. Your shoulders feel fatigued within minutes. This is from Iron overload. A lot of people don't understand that the epidemiological levels for iron are not necessarily what is good for you individually. Yep.
[00:53:44] Yeah, I'm with you 100% iron overload is definitely a trigger for many people especially men. So yeah it along with various kinds of environmental toxins heavy metals from the food Supply Air pollutants pollutants in the water chlorine disinfection byproducts [00:54:00] fluoride, which is directly affecting thyroid function and you know, there's there's a lot of layers to this.
[00:54:04] I also think hormesis which is transient metabolic stress. And so things like obviously exercise heat exposure like saunas cold exposure. So it temperature stress fasting various kinds of phytochemicals breath training. So what's called hypoxia hormesis and and how that impacts mitochondrial function which to to summarize that very quickly basically all of those types of metabolic stress stimulate the mitochondria to grow bigger and stronger.
[00:54:39] And B and the mitochondria are literally your energy producing units at the cellular level. These are these are what are responsible for producing the vast majority of the energy that powers virtually all of the trillions of cells in your body. So you have these kinds of environmental stressors hormetic [00:55:00] stressors that are responsible for keeping your mitochondria big and powerful.
[00:55:04] And and producing more of them so that they can produce energy abundantly. Well the problem in in the modern lifestyle in the modern environment that we live in is that we're lacking all of those layers of hormetic stress. So our mitochondria literally shrink in size we lose mitochondria over time.
[00:55:22] They become weak little fragile. Energy generators and ourselves and we don't have as many of them and and there's research for example showing that in most people especially people who don't exercise they lose literally half of their mitochondria from the ages of 40 to. So up there. So I also believe that there's a similar reduction from the ages of 20 to 40 that people probably also lose about half of their mitochondrial capacity from those ages to so and it's specifically occurring in people who don't do or medic stress and don't exercise is that their [00:56:00] mitochondria are shrinking and shriveling and atrophying so.
[00:56:03] You know, it's funny going back to this thing of kind of people being enamored with this theory around cortisol cortisol is not the main thing regulating our energy level right there something that is quite quite a bit more obvious of a place to look which is the things inside of our cells that are actually responsible for producing energy, right?
[00:56:24] All right, and which are in mitochondria and interestingly enough. There is actually a lot of research now supporting the idea that there is mitochondrial dysfunction. In chronic fatigue syndrome and that mitochondria are a huge player in energy issues. And and you know, this is kind of a whole Topic in and of itself, but Robert novios research.
[00:56:45] Who's a. Mitochondrial researcher at the University of California San Diego. He's done. Absolutely groundbreaking brilliant research. I think some of the most important research in the last 50 years. He's shown mitochondria are not just these sort of mindless energy [00:57:00] generators. Like we were taught in high school and college biology classes, but they're actually exquisitely sensitive environmental sensors and they are the things that are picking up on what's going on in the environment.
[00:57:12] Are is this a toxic environment? Are we being exposed to? Things are pathogens are various kinds of stressors and they are modulating gene expression at the cellular level. They're literally sending signals back to the nucleus of the cells which contains your your DNA and modulating, you know, the the the gene expression of things like.
[00:57:31] You know what's happening with with inflammation what's happening with immune function and what's happening with detoxification and what's happening with energy production. So mitochondria, I think are an extremely important part of the story and I think supporting mitochondrial Health through all of those layers that I just talked about through nutrition circadian rhythm detoxing getting rid of some of these toxins the BPA and heavy metals out of your body.
[00:57:55] And modulating optimizing brain health and all these other [00:58:00] layers of the story that I just mentioned. That is the big key to optimizing your energy levels and overcoming fatigue and the problem with this discussion is that. The medical office doxy in the pharmaceutical agenda have brainwashed people into thinking that diseases are just monoliths.
[00:58:20] This is all it is. That's all it is this one thing. And I was jokingly going to say tongue-in-cheek. So what you're saying is the one thing that someone has to do to eradicate chronic fatigue is. Get their lives straightened out literally like and and because everybody wants to one. Well, what's the one thing?
[00:58:44] What's the one thing re what the one thing? Well, you just have to change your life and that is actually a lot of things sleep activity levels nutrition, you know, it's like and that is why most people will [00:59:00] abandon the idea of correcting this problem because if you're feeling chronic fatigue right now, Chances are it began years ago and you only caved-in now because the body has been trying to make up for your crappy lifestyle for so long and quite frankly.
[00:59:19] It's not going to go away in a week. You may feel better in two or three weeks, but it's not going to completely go away maybe for a year you have to do the and and you should be living the right life. Anyway, it shouldn't be all do this for years all your better than I'll go back and crap on my.
[00:59:33] Yep. 100% And and yes P I think just this is kind of a fascinating thing about human psychology and in a very unfortunate thing is that we all seem to kind of be enamored with the idea that it's this one thing and you know, there's so many theories out there. And so much of medical research revolves around.
[00:59:56] Oh, what's the one thing in Alzheimer's disease that's causing [01:00:00] Alzheimer's disease. Oh, it's you know the beta amyloids and this let's let's create a drug that interrupts this, you know, specific enzyme involved in the synthesis of beta amyloid. There's so much of that kind of reductionist thinking that searching for the one cause I think in the context of.
[01:00:17] You know in the context of virtually all of the chronic disease that we see in the world today that is a result of disease, you know, these are diseases of civilization their diseases of nutrition and lifestyle. I think that sort of reductionist myopic one thing focused approach to trying to you know, fix it I think is almost always a huge mistake and is deeply misguided.
[01:00:43] So let's summarize what not. I think about we have summarized what I'd like to say is what's going on with you in the near future. Where can people meet you or do you have any upcoming lectures anything new? I have the next big launch of the energy blueprint [01:01:00] program. I do I release it in launches because you know, we have a live coaching component of it too as people go through the program.
[01:01:07] You know, they're getting coaching in the Facebook members group and and I do live Q&A calls with people as their as they're going through the program. So that's happening in March of next year. So in a few months from now, excellent and people can just go to your website the energy blueprint.com to learn more about this, right?
[01:01:28] Yeah, go to the energy blueprint.com if anybody's interested in, you know exploring the research on. This whole subject of adrenal fatigue in death. I highly recommend going to my article on my site just kind of Google the energy blueprint or Google my name and is adrenal fatigue real and that will come up and you know, there's just an amazing sort of compilation of all of these 79 studies that have been conducted over the last 25 years.
[01:01:54] So if you want to explore that do that. And then if you want, you know a free training on [01:02:00] how to actually start overcoming fatigue and increase your energy levels that's, you know, very practical free training on how to actually accomplish that you can go to the energy blueprint.com forward slash virtual training and just virtual - training.
[01:02:16] There you go. Listen. All right. Thanks so much for being on the show today. Yeah. It was my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me call and we'll talk to you soon. That's it for today. We don't have a second hour. And so we're taking off tomorrow's the blueprint Power Hour. I'm not having surgery tomorrow.
[01:02:33] My surgery was pushed back. I'll fill you in tomorrow during the blueprint Power Hour. So tune in then thanks for listening today.
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