Alternative Medicine - Hormones

Most people consider alternative medicine as a practice separate from conventional medicine, with its use of drugs and surgery. Yet the scope of alternative medicine, as practiced by knowledgeable and trained health professionals, is open to using every tool that benefits their patient, including drugs and surgery.

I've seen patients with absolutely debilitating conditions due to a lifetime of poor dietary habits, chronic recurring infections, the abuse of drugs, with autoimmune conditions, being over weight, and with huge cumulative exposures to environmental toxins including heavy metals, pesticides and molds.

When a person's condition has reached this severity, their endocrine system can no longer cope and so often requires support.

The Adrenal Hormone Cortisol

One gland of the endocrine system that helps us adapt to stressful situations, and is necessary for health, is the adrenal gland. The adrenals produce several hormones, the most important being cortisol. Cortisol maintains blood sugar and blood pressure, mobilizes the immune systems' white blood cells, and controls inflammation.

Most physicians don't consider cortisol in their normal investigation except for the severe deficiency condition known as Addison's Disease. Typical symptoms are fatigue, dizziness upon standing, muscle weakness, weight loss, low blood pressure, anxiety, nausea, headaches, sweating, mood changes, and cravings for salt with lab results indicating low sodium.

Yet a physician practicing alternative medicine will see some of these initial signs and symptoms and consider a cortisol insufficiency. This is one difference between the conventional approach and that of alternative medicine, in that a practitioner of alternative medicine does not wait until the patient becomes ill enough to label them with something like Addison's, but sees their patient's tendencies and helps to make an early correction.

Adrenal & Cortisol Research

In the 1930's and 1940's Dr. Fuller Albright, MD, was a pioneer in understanding the role of the human adrenal gland in health. His research took place at the Endocrine Center of the Massachusettes General Hospital. In 1949 Dr. Albright received a small quantity of Compound F, the adrenal steroid later called Hydrocortisone.

Dr. William Jefferies, MD, later took charge of the same Endocrine Center as well as the Endocrine Research Lab at the University Hospitals in Cleveland, Ohio. Clinical trials began with cortisone acetate and made available for prescriptive use in 1950.

In these trials the initial benefits of cortisone were astounding especially for infertility and ovarian dysfunction. But due to over zealous prescribing of high doses with their inevitable side effects, cortisone acetate and Hydrocortisone received a bad name. The expiration of patents also steered pharmaceutical companies away from further research and their promotion of the drug.

Dr. Jefferies dedicated his entire life to clinical practice and research focusing on the safe uses of cortisol, what he termed the "physiological" dose, far different from the higher dose "pharmacological" prescribing we know of today. This pharmacological dose is wrought with dangers and side effects.

Optimizing Hormone Levels

The point is that many people suffer from a cortisol deficiency because of inadequate protein and cholesterol intake, from Statin drugs which lower this precious and essential fat required by the adrenals to make cortisol, a lack of rest and enjoyment, improper eating habits and dieting that lead to hypoglycemia, low salt and sodium diets, and chronic unremitting stress.

For many people and physicians, it is acceptable when a hormone such as progesterone and estrogen are prescribed. It makes sense to supply the body with what it is lacking. Yet why not apply this same attitude or approach when considering cortisol, another essential hormone for health.

I have witnessed remarkable improvements with people suffering from the debilitating effects of a cortisol deficiency by optimizing their cortisol level with minute, physiological doses of Hydrocortisone.

Alternative medicine is a skill reserved for professionals who are knowledgeable about all facets of healing. To remove drugs and the benefits of pharmacy from its scope of practice is a sign of ignorance and prejudice.