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Adrenal glands are in charge of regulating hormones to help your body deal with different types of stress. Though the glands are designed to carefully control adrenal levels, certain substances can disrupt this balance. Caffeinated coffee affects adrenal levels dramatically.
The McGraw-Hill Concise Dictionary of Modern Medicine describes the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) as a highly interdependent endocrine (hormonal) unit, involved primarily in maintenance of normal physiological function and mediation of stress response.
Your adrenal glands make about 50 hormones. One of them is cortisol. When your body secretes too much cortisol, this can create a number of health issues. Cortisol regulates your body's immune response. In the right amount, it helps your metabolic function. It also helps you deal with stress. But long-term elevations of cortisol may wear out the adrenal gland so it is no longer able to produce normal levels of cortisol. In this case, suppression of the adrenal glands is required to reduce the amount of cortisol.
Adrenal suppression is a result of inadequate amounts of hormones being produced by the adrenal glands. The disorder also is called adrenal insufficiency or Addison's disease. Treatment involves replacing the hormones your adrenal glands no longer produce.
Adrenal suppression is occurs when the adrenal glands fail to produce a sufficient amount of adrenal hormones. There are two types of adrenal suppression disorders: primary adrenal insufficiency (also known as Addison's disease) and secondary adrenal insufficiency (sometimes refereed to as secondary Addison's).
Know the symptoms and risk factors for adrenal suppression in children; educate yourself on this dangerous, often unrecognized condition. Identifying it and treating it are simple; the catch is that you must test for it specifically. As adrenal suppression is ultimately an endocrine system concern, a child with adrenal insufficiency should be evaluated and treated by a pediatric endocrinologist.
A number of things can contribute to adrenal suppression in the body, including glucocorticoid deficiency, sudden ceasing of steroid asthma inhaler use, autoimmune disease, tuberculosis, infection, cancer and even adrenal gland bleeding. In addition, adrenal suppression can also be caused due to a diseased pituitary gland. The causes of adrenal suppression dictate the signs and symptoms; therefore, they can range from something as simple as craving salt to loss of consciousness.
