Please can I request help and thoughts with interpretation of my Cortisol Stress Profile (Cortisol, DHEA, SecIgA) results? For further background, please see also: healthunlocked.com/thyroidu...
22:00-00:00 (sample @ 22:34): 0.36 (normal range <=0.94) - normal and optimal
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Salivary DHEA nmol/L:
! 2.23 (normal range 0.25-2.22) - *abnormally high* (slightly)
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DHEA:Cortisol Ratio:
! 0.41 (normal range 0.05-0.32) - *abnormally high*
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Secretory IgA ug/mL:
! >1000 (normal range 56-212) - *abnormally high, off the chart!*
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As far as I can tell from my research into these results:
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My Cortisol levels and the curve is generally "OK", with some mild-moderate elevations in cortisol only during the two day time readings. Morning and night levels are good. This suggests acute stressors are causing these elevations (and that would agree with my situation! 5 y/o child, lots of home environment stress, lots of health stress etc.).
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My DHEA level is higher than normal, but no where near significantly enough to suggest anything too sinister (such as an adrenal tumor causing excess DHEA production). My DHEA:Cortisol ratio is thus a fair bit higher than normal.
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My Secretary IgA is off-the-chart high! My research suggests that this is most likely to be caused by an underlying GI infection or dietary intolerance, resulting in persistently elevated immune system response (which probably also explains why for several years I never seem to catch any of the bugs that are going around the home/school, such as colds/flu/stomach bugs etc. Frankly, this is something I have suspected for many years (although the NHS are continually totally ignorant to my complaints and symptoms), as I suffered with irritable bowel type symptoms for months at a time over several years during my mid-20's, and now typically suffer with chronic flatulence and most often constipation. As far as I can work out, my next course of action should be to look at having a comprehensive stool sample completed to look for an underlying yeast/bacterial/viral/parasitic GI infection, and if one is found, getting that treated (however, I have absolutely no faith in the NHS even being willing to look into this for me, so back to expensive private testing). However, if that all comes back negative, then it's most likely to be a dietary intolerance(s)- which will be somewhat harder to bottom-out. I have recently gone gluten-free (to support my wife who has Hasimotos and genetic gluten-sensitivity, and my son has the same genetic risk factors).
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Any thoughts welcomed! N.B. I have also recently seen a private liver specialist; long story short, the cause of my right-upper-quadrant pain is gallstones and they have recommended my gallbladder be removed on the NHS, and I also have NAFLD (non-alcoholic fatty liver disease; this was first diagnosed in March 2018). Said specialist (a Professor of 35 years experience) thinks that my rapid weight loss and over-training in 2018 essentially resulted in a state of internal nutritional starvation (in his opinion, much like that caused by anorexia) and this is likely the cause of my bradycardia, among other symptoms. He also believes my rapid and extreme weight loss is the cause of my gallstones and NAFLD, partially due to the rapid "dump" of triglycerides into my blood stream from the fat burning, and likely a bit too much cholesterol in my diet (total 4.9 when most recently tested, so I'm working on getting that down by reducing intake of saturated fats and cholesterol from dietary sources).
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tomranson85
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you can see that in stages 1 - 3 of adrenal fatigue the cortisol stays high and DHEA starts high then begins to drop.
Eventually the cortisol starts to drop as well. Just from seeing people's results on this forum the way that the cortisol starts to drop seems to follow a pattern.
1) The first cortisol sample result starts to drop and becomes lower than optimal, and the body responds by increasing cortisol production later in the day, so sample 2 and (eventually) samples 3 and 4 will get high in range or over the range.
2) The first cortisol sample result keeps on dropping, then sample 2 starts to drop, and samples 3 and 4 get higher still.
3) Then samples 1 and 2 get lower still and may end up below range. Samples 3 and 4 may get extremely high.
4) Then Sample 3 starts to drop as well, and the only result which is high is sample 4. All the others are low in range or below range.
Your DHEA is high, and your sample 1 cortisol is well within range but is below optimal. Sample 2 is high in range and sample 3 is above range.
Optimal results for cortisol are given here (see Example 1) :
I think you are in the very early stages of adrenal fatigue, but you should be able to stop the problem getting worse quite easily with appropriate supplementing and diet. Doctors will be completely uninterested in your cortisol and DHEA results because they are too good.
I don't know anything about Secretory IgA, sorry.
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Since you are in the early stages of adrenal fatigue I would suggest that you don't have to do anything drastic in terms of self-help. I would instead suggest that you take a good quality B Complex. Two products that get mentioned a lot on this forum are :
Thorne Basic B - One pill/capsule per day
OR
Igennus Super B Complex - Two pills/capsules per day
The other thing that will help is an "adrenal cocktail". There are dozens of recipes available on the web, and they are all extremely similar. They involve taking a combination of vitamin C, salt and potassium in some form or other. A typical example is given here :
The link suggests that people with "healthy but stressed" adrenal function would benefit from the adrenal cocktail, and I think that would probably describe you.
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He also believes my rapid and extreme weight loss is the cause of my gallstones and NAFLD, partially due to the rapid "dump" of triglycerides into my blood stream from the fat burning, and likely a bit too much cholesterol in my diet (total 4.9 when most recently tested, so I'm working on getting that down by reducing intake of saturated fats and cholesterol from dietary sources).
Your brain represents about 2% of your total body weight but contains about 25% of your total cholesterol. If you reduce cholesterol and fat intake your brain will suffer the consequences.
Referring to cholesterol in diet, were you aware that cholesterol is considered to be "no longer a nutrient of concern"? You should do some investigation into the effect of cholesterol in the diet and gallstones - and stick to sources that are relatively new. I'm very dubious about your doctor's advice about diet, saturated fats and cholesterol - he seems to be stuck in the past.
Hey humanbean, many thanks for your detailed reply!
I think I had tripped over your kinked article re. Adrenal fatigue before, but I hadn't fully absorbed the info. Your careful explanation has helped me an awful lot, so many thanks indeed for that. I need to reread it again as my head is a bit fuzzy today, but I'm pretty sure I've got the gist of it now. It does indeed seem that I am in the early stages of adrenal fatigue as you suggest.
I will now take a serious look at the adrenal cocktail. I've read about it many times, but couldn't until now attribute it to my needs.
You raise some really interesting points re. fat and cholestoral. Perhaps the previous advice I've received (and read about) is indeed, quite dated. I keep reading about how "cholestoral should be 4.0 or below, if you have risk factors" (which we have in the family, and I'm still overweight with BMI 28.8 (and it was 42 this time last year)). I know most recently that my triglyceride levels are OK (they've never been that high, even when morbidly obese), however my cholestoral has been creeping up to 4.9 most recently, and that just made me worry a bit (perhaps quite unnecessarily). Any thoughts on "in the real world" what is considered to be a worryingly high cholestoral level? I know my HDL level is OK, but could be higher, and my LDL and non-HDL levels are OK but could be a little lower (based on Thriva optimal reference ranges).
Re. fat and saturated fat, you make a very good point which I can relate to. When I lost a lot of weight (intentionally) last year (45 kg lost in 8 months, I'm now down to 98 kg), it was achieved through a GP-overseen calorie restricted diet, low in fat, and with the use of the additional Orlistat fat binder drug (which is horrible, but effective). I reckon that the very, very, very low fat absorbtion as a result of low fat intake and low fat absorbtion most likely highly contributed to my current gallstones as per your links (which WERE NOT THERE in March 2018, when I first had a liver+gb ultrasound, following pain and raised LFTs resulting from a prescribed drug induced liver injury (therputic doses only, not an overdose)).
If you've been on a low fat diet and have also been taking a fat binder then I suspect your fat-soluble vitamin levels (Vitamins A, D, E and K - getting the right forms of these vitamins is important) must be in your boots. SeasideSusie and SlowDragon are our gurus on this subject and can probably suggest what you ought to be testing and taking. Low fat isn't good for the brain either, and may be why so many people are now developing dementia in later life.
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If you are worried about cholesterol, fats, oils and diet then my favourite suggestions for things to read would be virtually anything by Dr Malcolm Kendrick :
Books : A Statin Nation ; The Great Cholesterol Con
Nina Teicholz : Author, also tweets, and has her own website.
Ken D Berry MD : Twitter, Youtube
David Diamond : Youtube : search for "David Diamond cholesterol"
Tom Naughton : Made two films, Fathead and Fathead Kids, and written a book to go with the second film. The first film (Fathead) starts off irritating and gets better as it goes on. Naughton had never made a film before, so he learned as he went along - and it shows - but the film is worth watching. He has a website/blog and also tweets occasionally.
I could probably come up with half a dozen more people, but I think this is enough to be going on with.
You asked what a dangerously high cholesterol level is. Well, I don't know what it is, if there is one. My total cholesterol is over 8, and I don't worry about it at all, nor do I take statins. If/when I get cardiovascular disease I won't blame my cholesterol level. I'll blame lots of other factors in my life e.g. smoking for over 30 years. (I stopped a few years ago, but no doubt lots of damage has been done.)
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