The Connection between Chronic Stress and Autoimmune Conditions: How to Support Healthy Cortisol Levels

In this blog, I’ll discuss the science behind chronic stress and explore its effects on your overall health. I’ll also review how I evaluate this issue in my patients and what I do when a problem with chronic stress is discovered. Lastly, I’ll give you some specific suggestions to get the adrenal hormones into better balance.

The Role of Adrenal Stress Hormones

During moments of acute stress, adrenal hormones are released to help us perform more effectively. The sympathetic nervous system activates, and we stop digesting food, making hormones, or repairing tissues so that our cellular resources can be dedicated to making us faster and stronger to escape threats or defeat an attacker. This is what’s happening during a fight, flee, or freeze response.

Once we're safe again, the adrenal hormones are quickly metabolized, the sympathetic nervous system turns off, and the parasympathetic nervous system turns on. Our cells can go back to maintaining and repairing our bodies. We resume digesting food, making hormones, and detoxifying harmful compounds.

When Stress Becomes Continuous

If we don't receive the "safe" signal, the sympathetic system continues to be activated and the parasympathetic system becomes less active. Over time, this leads to increased wasting of magnesium (and other minerals) in the urine and increased glucose in the bloodstream, raising the risk of insulin resistance and diabetes.

With chronic stress, the adrenal hormone cortisol becomes imbalanced. While you would normally experience a natural raise in cortisol levels upon waking, chronic stress can cause too large a spike in the morning, increased cortisol levels throughout the day, or improperly timed cortisol release. As a results, you might be at greater risk for developing autoimmune diseases like Sjögren's syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, or inflammatory bowel disease.

There's also greater risk for developing metabolic problems like obesity, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, and fatty liver disease. Mental health problems also worsen, with more anxiety, depression, brain fog, and cognitive decline.

How to Address Adrenal Hormone Imbalance

In my clinical practice, I have my patients obtain a four-point cortisol test — either via saliva testing or urine testing — at 8 AM, noon, 4 PM, and 8 PM. This tells me if their cortisol levels are in range at each time point throughout the day.

When cortisol is outside the normal pattern, patients will experience increased sleep disruption, fatigue, anxiety, depression, and brain fog. They're also at greater risk for developing autoimmune disorders, metabolic health problems, and insulin resistance.

I also ask about birth and early life events. Were there episodes of early life stress, adverse childhood experiences, or severe adult stress? If yes, I refer my patients to talk therapy to help address those issues. I also recommend beginning a meditation or mindfulness practice. Getting more time outside in nature can be helpful as well, and we discuss how to improve their sleep hygiene.

Supportive Nutrition

I always suggest reducing or eliminating sugar-sweetened beverages and reducing white flour-based bread, pasta and cereals. I encourage eating more vegetables, including root vegetables, tubers, and squashes.

Increasing your intake of leafy greens and sea salt can boost magnesium and trace mineral intake. Epsom salt or Dead Sea mineral soaks can also help replace key minerals (and improve sleep!).

Targeted Supplements

Targeted supplement can also support rebalancing your stress hormone response. In addition to activated B vitamins and magnesium, I also suggest a blend of plant adaptogens, a special mix of herbs that have been shown to help normalize cortisol function. ^{(2, 3)}:

• Ashwagandha (helpful in reducing anxiety and supporting the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and normalizing the cortisol response⁽⁴⁾ 
• Magnolia or Philodendron bark extracts can help reduce anxiety, improve mood, and reduce cortisol dysregulation in stressed adults.^(5-7) 
• L-theonine, which is found in green tea and Suntheonine®, is associated with improved sleep and improvement in the cortisol response.^(8-13) 
• Banana leaf (corosolic acid) and maral extracts have a long history of medicinal use in Southeast Asia to improve glucose and lipid metabolism.^{(14, 15)} 
• Corosolic acid also inhibits the conversion of cortisone to cortisol and may modulate the rise in cortisol due to chronic stress.⁽¹⁶⁾ 

I have combined these adaptogens into one product, CortiStress Relief. I suggest taking this for 3 weeks, with and one week off each month. 

Final Thoughts

Our bodies are designed to manage and respond to acute stress. That has served us well over millions of generations. Now that we may experience ongoing stress without release or rebalancing, however, we our adrenal hormones can easily become imbalanced, resulting in higher rates of sleep problems, mental health issues, metabolic problems, and autoimmunity.

Improving your nutrition, trying a stress-reducing practice, and taking targeted supplements like CortiStress Relief, Activated B vitamins, and magnesium, are all ways to reduce chronic stress and improve symptoms like fatigue, anxiety, depression, or brain fog.

My plan is to thrive to 120, and I need a healthy stress response system in order to achieve that goal. I hope that's your goal too! Keeping your cortisol optimized will be a big step in the right direction.

Citations

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