One of the Biggest Negative Effects of using diet pills is the fact that most of them are loaded with stimulants (ma huang, guarana, caffeine, kola, bitter oranges) which give you a boost of energy. Unfortunately they have a negative effect on your adrenal glands, which are responsible for producing NOT only your stress hormones, but also hormones that regulating the fluids in your body, your sex hormones, blood sugar, and also activate your immune system.

As you can see your adrenal glands regulate many functions in your body, but we can easily over-tax or over-burden them due to all the stress we have in our life.

What I mean by overtaxing them is that our adrenal glands like every other organ can only function so long at maximum capacity, before they become depleted or exhausted. Again the reason for the exhaustion is STRESS and inadequate nourishment of specific nutrients that are depleted due to stress. We can have so much stress in our life that it constantly triggers our adrenal glands to produce additional cortisol and adrenaline.  This will interfere with the normal production of other hormones, because the body believes it is in that ‘fight or flight’ mode, which then upsets the sodium and potassium in your blood, your blood sugar, immune system and libido.

Cortisol is not a good or bad hormone in spite of all the stories and misinformation you heard through infomercials. The problem is that all the constant stress has us making more cortisol until we eventually reach a point that our adrenal glands can’t make enough…this is what is called adrenal exhaustion or adrenal depletion.

The key point you need to understand is that continual production of cortisol and adrenaline triggers your metabolism to burn calories from the breakdown of carbohydrates and proteins NOT stored body fat.  This is the number one reason why so many people struggle with fatigue, weight gain, cravings, moods swings…they are constantly burning the wrong type of calories!

This is why it is so important to examine the amount of stress in your life.  Don’t forget there are different types of stress other than mental, emotional stress you need to consider. If your blood sugar is out of balance…it causes your body to produce more cortisol and adrenaline.  This contributes to the burden or demand placed on your adrenal glands, as well as, triggering your metabolism out of its fat burning ability.

Digestion is another stress or should I say INDIGESTION! Because when you have bloating, gas, heartburn and all the other irritable bowel problems, this causes irritation and inflammation. And guess what do you think your body does to get rid of the inflammation….it produces more cortisol!

So you can see – stress can come in a number of different ways.  Exercise is another form of stress that contributes to the over-production of your stress hormones and leads to over-training and why some individuals have hit a plateau and are not seeing results from their workouts.

There is more information about the whole stress connection in “To Burn or Not to Burn, Fat is the Question.” My first suggestion if you’ve been struggling with various health problems that haven’t been remedied would be to take the Stress Test and see if that could be part of your problem.  If you suspect the adrenals could be a problem I would recommend the 24 Hour Saliva test, which is the best laboratory test to determine how well stress is effecting your body.  If the adrenals are exhausted I would begin with one of the Adrenal Support products (I like the herbal tinctures…they mix easily into my green drinks), along with DHEA, Pregnenolone if the lab test confirm the need.

Regarding the use of stimulants…it is the last thing you want to be adding to your body if you suspect your adrenals are depleted and exhausted.  Otherwise you could be taking two steps forward and two steps backwards each day as you try and repair and renourish your fatigued adrenal glands.