There are many endocrine disorders that are prevalent in todays age. Some of them you may have heard before: Diabetes, Graves Disease, Hashimoto Thyroiditis, Cushing's Disease, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (or PCOS), or even fertility issues, just to name a few. These all may seem like very serious diagnoses, with little information about how they happen. In this article, I will lay out the "skeleton" of what the endocrine system is, how a hormone imbalance occurs, and the chiropractic solution to a hormone imbalance.
Contents of this Blog:
What Is The Endocrine System?
The endocrine system is a group of organs that make, release, and secrete chemical messengers called hormones into the body in order to regulate vital body functions such as metabolism, body growth and development, reproduction, mood, and stress. Regulating these key functions in the body properly to keep your body balanced is called homeostasis.
There is a laundry list of endocrine organs, but the main organs of the endocrine system include the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, thyroid, parathyroid, thymus, pancreas, adrenal glands, kidneys, testicles (males), and ovaries (females).
What Is A Hormone?
A hormone is a chemical created by an endocrine organ to carry a specific message to a desired cell, to allow that cell to perform some sort of function in your body. Let me give you some examples of the functions of certain hormones:
Thyroxine (T4): Increases body temperature and metabolism. Allowing the body to burn more calories.
Cortisol: Controls the metabolism of proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Also has anti-inflammatory effects.
Insulin: Allows glucose (carbohydrates) to be used as fuel and energy for cells.
Adrenaline: Activates fight or flight response, very helpful when getting chased by a bear.
You can think of the endocrine system as the body's communicating system. All endocrine organs and hormones are constantly communicating with each other to make sure your body is working together properly. Like when you eat food, the food can be used as fuel for your body or to store it away for a later time. Or to maintain a growing baby while being pregnant. Or during puberty to grow! None of this is possible without your endocrine system and the organs involved producing hormones all day everyday.
So I Get What The Endocrine System Is And What It Does, But What About An Endocrine Disorder?
An endocrine disorder is simply a hormone imbalance. The whole endocrine system works together as a unit. This means that all of its organs: the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, thyroid, thymus, pancreas, and adrenal glands make and release tightly controlled hormones and work synchronously to keep your body balanced. An endocrine disorder occurs when either a certain hormone isn't being released enough, or because there is too much of a hormone being released and the body can't compensate or adapt to the unexpected increase or decrease hormone levels.
For example, normally the thyroid may release T3 and T4 in order to increase your body's metabolism. The higher your metabolism, the more calories your body takes to burn for energy. When your body has the correct amount of T3 and T4 circulating in your system, and your metabolism is running at the perfect speed to keep your body balanced, TSH, a hormone specifically created and released to talk back to the thyroid, gets released from the pituitary gland. When TSH hits the blood stream, the thyroid then knows to stop its release of T3 and T4, keeping your body at equilibrium, or in other words, homeostasis.
In an abnormal setting, the thyroid may keep releasing T3 and T4 without TSH being released to tell the thyroid to stop overworking. Eventually, there will be too much T3 and T4 circulating in the bloodstream, and the body's metabolism will keep increasing and increasing through the roof! Eventually, the thyroid will be overworking and be considered a Hyperthyroid. The body may start running hot, you may start losing weight without trying, getting nervous or having anxiety, a faster heartbeat, or trouble sleeping may occur with a hyperthyroid.
This is the general trend for any endocrine disorder. The tight regulation between the hormones gets disrupted, and the organ either produces too much or too little of the needed hormone to keep your body in homeostasis. Here are a few other common endocrine disorders:
Hypothyroidism/Hashimoto Thyroiditis: Too little T3 and T4 being released
Cushing's Disease: Too much cortisol
Addison's Disease: Too little cortisol
Diabetes Mellitus: Not enough Insulin
How Can Chiropractic Help Treat Hormone Imbalances?
Traditionally, endocrine disorders are treated with medication or surgery. Many times either of these will keeps the symptoms of the disorder at bay, and may even bring some sort of equilibrium back to the body giving you some relief. However, these two modes of treatment do not target the cause of the disorder, and do not necessarily restore the disrupted natural harmony of your body's hormones, leaving you still not quite feeling right.
Instead of providing a form of treatment to stop symptoms from showing up, how much more successful would treatment be if it targeted the root cause of the endocrine disorder? I will tell you, the cause of many different endocrine disorders does not lie in the actual endocrine system, the cause is mainly found in the system that the endocrine system is controlled by: The Nervous System.
The nervous system contains the brain, spinal cord, and spinal nerves which reach out to control every organ, every gland, and every cell of your body. Specifically looking at the endocrine system, it is the nervous system that dictates the rise in cortisol during stress, the rise in insulin when eating, or the fluctuating progesterone and estrogen during a woman's cycle. Unless the actual endocrine organ has been surgically removed, or a serious injury to the organ has occurred, if there is an endocrine disorder, there is an issue somewhere along the nervous system.
A chiropractor will assess your nerves making sure they are doing their job. We take a close look at the spine because the spine is the beginning of where the nervous system branches out to the rest of the body, and the area most likely to effect a nerve with its communication to an organ, muscle, or tissue. Sometimes, those nerves get irritated and inflamed, when this occurs, whatever the nerve touches will be negatively effected (an irritated nerve to the thyroid will effect the thyroid and its hormones, or an irritated nerve to the adrenal glands will effect those glands and their hormones, etc). The communication between the nervous system and desired organ or tissue is disrupted. This alone can be the source of many endocrine disorders.
A spinal correction or adjustment is made to remove the irritation from the nerve, and when the irritation to the nerve is gone, the body can return to normal homeostasis. That simple back or neck ache along with typical hormone imbalance symptoms may be a clue that your nervous system isn't doing its job correctly. If this is the case for you, it might be time to come in and get your spine checked.
For more information on your body's nervous system and the effect it has on hormones and the endocrine system, please reach out to me, Dr. Nathan Covelski at Restoration Chiropractic:
Restoration Chiropractic
2103 County Road D E, Unit A
Maplewood, MN 55109
612-295-0180
Thank You!
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