AHS16 - Ancestral Health Symposium 2016

Adrenal fatigue has become a popular diagnosis amongst both patients and practitioners within the functional/integrative medicine community. It is used to describe a wide variety of symptoms, ranging from fatigue, insomnia and brain fog, to joint pain, allergies, and weight gain. Proponents of the adrenal fatigue concept suggest that it affects millions of people around the world, and may be at the root of most modern disease. But does adrenal fatigue really exist? Is it an accurate representation of stress-related pathology? Is it in alignment with current scientific evidence? In this presentation I will critically evaluate the adrenal fatigue hypothesis, discuss the role of the HPA axis in health and disease from an ancestral perspective, and suggest a new, evidence-based paradigm for understanding the adrenal fatigue syndrome.  

Upon completion of the session participants will:
1. Gain an evolutionary perspective on the impact of stress on human physiology.
2. Understand why the “adrenal fatigue” model is not supported by the scientific evidence. 
3. Learn a new, evidence-based paradigm of understanding stress-related pathology.