Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
Subscribe Today! Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode. DO I NEED TO TAKE A MULTIVITAMIN? INVITE HEALTH PODCAST, EPISODE 644 Hosted by Amanda Williams, MD, MPH InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: [00:00:04] Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed …
When should we start to take multivitamin’s and which multivitamin is beneficial to take at what age? So many questions involving multi’s so learn more now!
Adrenal Glands
Written by Dr. Claire Arcidiacono, ND
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The thyroid works with the adrenal glands lets look deeper into what the adrenal glands are and how they work.†
In a nutshell they are small glands on top of the kidneys that produce hormones. They look rather like little hats that live on top of the kidneys. These glands produce 3 types of hormones. They produce mineralocorticoids for example aldosterone which can control blood pressure, glucocorticoids predominately cortisol which is the hormone in charge of our flight or fight response, and adrenal androgen such as DHEA and testosterone. What does all this mean? Well to sum it up the adrenal glands are in charge of our blood pressure, sodium balance in the body, water balance in the body as well as the body’s response to stress or illness. Now stress can mean anything from work stress to a long term illness. If any of your bodies systems are not working up to par the body sees that as stress and the adrenals will react by making cortisol. The adrenals are also in charge of regulating metabolism for example weight as well as fat metabolism and glucose regulation. The adrenals are also very important when it comes to sleep regulation. In fact, when the adrenals are signaled to produce more cortisol (which given it is the main hormone associated with stress it is the main hormone I will talk about) the symptoms include fatigue with a difficulty staying asleep. This can lead to feelings of anxiety as well as weight gain and higher than normal blood pressure.† (1)
Well the thyroid as we know it is connected to almost every system in the body. One of the problems of having too much cortisol produced by the adrenals is that they affect the thyroid itself. Stress hormones for example cortisol, cause the conversion of T3 from T4 to be reduced hence increasing the likelihood of hypothyroid symptoms! (2) This may be one reason when we see clients with what is called adrenal fatigue we often are also working with them to address hypothyroid symptoms. Interestingly, in cases of long term thyroid dysfunction there is also adrenal dysfunction. Now you might say “I know I just read that” but what I mean is that the adrenals can affect the thyroid but the thyroid can affect the adrenals long term. How is that possible? Because the adrenals will often try and compensate for the reduced thyroid hormones. To produce energy they will produce cortisol. However, in the long run this can cause adrenal fatigue. What exactly is adrenal fatigue? In the normal process your body will produce cortisol in the morning to wake you up, a small amount in the afternoon to keep you going and none at night so you can sleep. When you are under stress the adrenals are constantly forced to produce cortisol. This leads to the adrenals becoming unregulated or fatigued. One such issue is that they produce cortisol at night rather than in the morning. They also tend to produce either too much cortisol or not enough. Symptoms of adrenal fatigue can include trouble with sleeping/fatigue, headaches, and digestive issues, changes in weight, and anxiety, brain fog, depression and even joint pain. (3) Please see the included picture for a complete system by system breakdown of the symptoms of adrenal fatigue.† (4)
Since so many people with hypothyroid also suffer from adrenal fatigue I really wanted to include a brief discussion of it here since it is important to support the adrenals when working with the thyroid.†
The following supplements have been found to be helpful in working with adrenal fatigue:†
Adrenal glandular are very important in working with adrenal fatigue.†
See InviteⓇ Health Supplement Dr. Pressman Adrenoserine†
Ashwagandha root has been found in studies to not only regulate the thyroid but it also helps to act as an adaptogen to regulate cortisol. In fact studies show lower cortisol levels using this herb.†(5)
See InviteⓇ Health Supplements Dr. Pressman Adrenoserine and Thyroid HxⓇ †
Rhodiola has been found to help moderate the cortisol levels when they are high due to stress. This can help with the stress response.† (6)
See InviteⓇ Health Supplements Rhodiola and our Performance multivitamin†
Licorice root helps to maintain cortisol in the morning so that energy is available when needed. One of the things that often happens in adrenal fatigue is that while there is too much cortisol at night there is too little in the morning. Licorice helps to normalize this.† (7)
See InviteⓇ Health Supplements Dr. Pressman Adrenoserine, DGL Licorice, and MinACID Hx® †
B Complex is important for energy and are usually depleted by stress which is associated with adrenal fatigue.†
See InviteⓇ Health Supplements Methyl-B for an activated complex of B vitamins that go straight to work †
Methylated B vitamins are very good for people with adrenal fatigue since they don’t have to be activated.† (8)
See InviteⓇ Health Supplements B-Complex 50, B-Complex 100 and any of our Men’s Multivitamin, Women’s Multivitamin, Core Multivitamin, and Performance Multivitamin †
Phosphatidylserine is one of the best things to help with cortisol that is waking you up in the middle of the night. After a few weeks most people say their sleep starts to improve. Studies show Phosphatidylserine normalizes cortisol especially when taken at night.† (9)
See InviteⓇ Health Supplements Phosphatidylserine and Cerebral care †
⦁ https://www.yourhormones.info/glands/adrenal-glands/
⦁ https://www.amymyersmd.com/article/adrenal-thyroid-connection/
⦁ https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/what-is-cortisol
⦁ https://drmteitelbaum.com/signs-of-adrenal-fatigue/
⦁ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23439798/
⦁ https://www.herbalgram.org/resources/herbalgram/issues/82/table-of-contents/article3409/
⦁ Al-Dujaili EA, Kenyon CJ, Nicol MR, Mason JI. Licorice and glycyrrhetinic acid increase DHEA and deoxycorticosterone levels in vivo and in vitro by inhibiting adrenal SULT2A1 activity. Mol Cell Endocrinol. 2010 Dec 22.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov ⦁ HYPERLINK “https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6770181/” ⦁ HYPERLINK “https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6770181/”⦁ /pmc/articles/PMC6770181/
⦁ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4942871/
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selenium
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Please see below for a complete transcript of this episode.
Hosted by Amanda Williams, MPH
*Intro music*
InViteⓇ Health Podcast Intro: Welcome to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast, where our degreed healthcare professionals are excited to offer you the most important health and wellness information you need to make informed choices about your health. You can learn more about the products discussed in each of these episodes and all that InViteⓇ Health has to offer at www.invitehealth.com/podcast. First time customers can use promo code PODCAST at checkout for an additional 15% off your first purchase. Let’s get started!
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Amanda Williams, MPH:
[00:00:40] You’ve probably heard that vitamins and minerals are pretty important in our body. Today, I want to focus in on a particular micro mineral that’s incredibly important for our cellular health and has been linked to so many different cancers. So when we have low levels of this particular mineral, this can certainly be problematic. So I want to talk about the importance of it, the science behind it, how it’s working in the human body, all of its many different functions and what you can be doing to support your selenium levels. So I’m Amanda Williams, M.D., M.P.H., and let’s get right to it.† [00:01:16]
[00:01:16] Let’s talk about selenium. We certainly understand that selenium is a trace mineral, meaning that the body generally only needs a small amount. It’s found naturally in foods. The problem is is that there are pockets within the United States where the soil content of selenium is actually quite low. Now, does this drive up a true deficiency in many Americans? No, not necessarily and part of this is because of, you know, food traveling across the country from areas that are rich in selenium and making them, their way over to to places that are maybe lacking in that selenium content. But we certainly know that places such as Connecticut and Indiana, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island are all states, and Delaware, I don’t want to forget Delaware, are all states where the soil itself is lacking adequate selenium. So we know that selenium supplementation is often incredibly advantageous, especially in those areas.† [00:02:21]
[00:02:21] As I mentioned, to have a true deficiency, yeah, that’s not always going to be the case, but the likelihood that you have an insufficiency or just low levels, which can certainly be problematic, is something that we certainly don’t want to, to overlook and seeing all of the different ways to which selenium is playing a role in our immune system and many other functions. And so I want to talk about this. So we know that it’s essential for our health, this little tiny, little micro mineral. It’s a trace mineral, as we call it, and we certainly can recognize it when it was discovered all the way back in the 1800s that it plays a really significant role in human health. So what is it actually doing? What’s its function in the body? Well, we can look at how it works inside of the cell to repair our DNA. So if you have damage done to that main motherboard within your cell, that’s a big problem. And so this is where that cancer connection comes in because we understand that cellular DNA damage is what drives cancer. So if we’re lacking selenium, we can now see that our cell is struggling to repair itself and fix that DNA. It’s kind of like if your computer crashes and you’re at a loss, you don’t know how to fix it. That’s a problem. So this is where the selenium comes into play. We know that it’s integrally involved in thyroid function. We can certainly look at its impact when it comes to cardiovascular health. There have been studies looking at low levels of selenium and the correlation with heart disease.† [00:04:04]
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[00:04:04] Now, when it comes to our immune system, both the innate and the adaptive, that’s your immediate and delayed immune system response, we know that selenium is critical to this. So if we have inadequate selenium coming from our diet and we are not taking supplementation, then we’re kind of setting ourselves up for immune problems. We want to make sure our immune system is nice and strong so we can fend off any of the little bugs and creepy crawlies that come our way. Now we can also see how it’s important when it comes to our exposure to heavy metals. So when we think about things like lead and mercury and arsenic, we know that selenium is important when we think about the body’s ability to remove those heavy metals. We don’t want those heavy metals to find a home in our body and hang out. We know it works integrally with Vitamin E, which we know is one of our most important antioxidants in the body, but we can see how selenium partners up with Vitamin E to really heighten this level of antioxidant, free radical fighting capabilities that Vitamin E already has.† [00:05:21]
[00:05:22] So when you look at people who potentially have inadequate selenium in the body, we can look at problems such as just feeling weak and fatigued. Because remember, your cellular DNA can’t repair itself. We can look at folks who maybe have recurrent infections because it’s impacting your immune system. We can certainly look at it in reproductive health. We’ve seen that males who have low selenium levels will often have a low sperm count. We can see that it can impact our hair and actually create a situation where we’re losing pigmentation in our hair. It’s actually even been linked with vision health and cataracts, the development of cataracts. So this is an area that we definitely don’t want to overlook.† [00:06:09]
[00:06:10] Now you don’t need too much selenium. You know, too much of one thing isn’t always a good thing. We certainly see this to be the case when it comes to selenium. So we know it’s helping our DNA. We know it’s helping us eliminate toxins. We know it’s bolstering up our immune defenses. It’s helping to support our metabolism and our thyroid function. And certainly, we know that when it comes to heart health, when it comes to making sure our cells aren’t becoming problematic where we then develop cancer, this is why we need to not ignore the importance of selenium. And one of the things that science and the research has shown is the fact that selenium, this little tiny trace mineral, has all of these functions to, you know, keep the body safe from oxidative stress, to allow our thyroid to function every single day, to keep our immune system strong, to promote the health of our brain, our eyes, healthy cell division, promote the health of our heart. These are integral, and when we take selenium along with Vitamin E, this really allows our cellular health to be much stronger.† [00:07:32]
[00:07:33] So where do we get exposure to selenium when we look at different foods? Certainly, it’s a wide spectrum so we can look at certain seeds and nuts. We can look at certain fish like cod, for example, shrimp. But some people don’t eat fish. Some people don’t eat seafood. We can look at garlic. We can look at lentils as a source. We can certainly look at things like carrots and cabbage, almonds, pecans. I had mentioned the nuts. So we know that there are many ways to which we can incorporate selenium into our diet. The problem is, is that many people may not be getting a high enough exposure to those good, healthy foods. If you’re following a Standard American Diet, the likelihood that you may still be lacking in your selenium exposure each day is pretty high. And this can be problematic, especially if you’re in one of those states where we already know that the locally grown foods are going to be lacking selenium. So this is why we want to make sure, because for people who have insufficient levels, you know, maybe you have headaches, you know, chronic headaches, and you don’t know why that is. And maybe it’s because of just this insufficient intake of selenium. There’s many ways to which selenium insufficiencies can present itself. And then scientifically speaking, when you start to look at how important it is when it comes to that cellular division and the compounds contained within this micro mineral are so incredibly important in terms of that cellular division. And this is why they’ve been able to to look at epidemiological studies indicating that in areas where the population has low selenium levels, they are at a much greater risk for developing many different types of cancers. So in particular, they, they’ve zeroed in on things such as lung cancer, liver cancer, stomach cancer, bladder cancers. Now that’s not saying that there’s not the correlation between prostate cancer and breast cancer. Certainly there is, but we know that when it comes to promoting our longevity and helping to support our cellular health and that very important motherboard that DNA, we have to have selenium.† [00:10:02]
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[00:10:03] So getting that exposure can come in different ways. My advice is always use our Core Multivitamin. That’s an excellent way to get a good exposure to selenium. You’re getting the comprehensive Vitamin E. Remember those to partner up to help to support your health. But you can also use our Women’s Multivitamin, our Men’s Multi, our Performance Multivitamin. They’re all going to give you a good amount of selenium to make sure that your body can go through all of these different things that it needs selenium for each and every single day. For the immune system, for your heart, for your brain, for your eyeballs. And this is certainly important. It’s one of those minerals that we don’t talk about enough, but its impact in our body can be life changing. So do make sure that at a minimum, you are taking a comprehensive multivitamin, multimineral formulation, such as the InViteⓇ Core Multi.† [00:10:58]
[00:10:59] So that is all that I have for you for today. I want to thank you so much for tuning in to the InViteⓇ Health Podcast. Remember, you can find all of our episodes for free wherever you listen to podcasts or by visiting invitehealth.com/podcast. Do make sure that you subscribe and you leave us a review. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We will see you next time for another episode of the InViteⓇ Health Podcast.† [00:10:59]
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