Gluten and PMS – What’s the Association?

There’s a part of the body responsible for creating energy, maintaining ideal weight, balancing mood and hormones, reducing pain and promoting anti-aging; it’s called the adrenal gland(s).

The adrenal glands are located above the kidneys and release hormones into the bloodstream.

When the adrenal glands become exhausted from chronic stress, they cannot keep up with all the demands made upon them and a breakdown of systems occurs. This then leads to fatigue, depression, loss of libido and hormonal imbalance symptoms such as PMS, migraines and cramping, to name a few.

Gluten sensitivity is responsible for putting stress on the adrenal glands due to the inflammatory response created in a gluten sensitive individual’s digestive tract. If the inflammatory reaction happened only occasionally it wouldn’t upset the adrenals’ ability to function optimally. But in patients with gluten sensitivity this inflammation occurs every time they eat any gluten, which can be several times per day.

Thereby the adrenals are getting stressed by all the inflammation gluten is creating in the intestines. When this stress becomes chronic many symptoms are created due to a phenomenon called “adrenal exhaustion”.

Under normal conditions the adrenals make a hormone that is the basic building block of the sex hormones. Specifically these hormones, DHEA, estrogen, testosterone and progesterone, need to be maintained in proper balance to prevent such conditions as PMS, anxiety and infertility.

So the key point here is that when you body has been under chronic stress it is forced to make a decision: It can get you through the day, putting one foot in front of the other, or it can make adequate amounts of sex hormones. It can’t do both because it’s too stressed. When put in this situation, your body decides that the most pro-survival thing to do is to get you through the day, to the detriment of making sex hormones. The insufficient production of hormones does not occur evenly across the board however and progesterone tends to fall more dramatically than does estrogen resulting in a net estrogen dominance.

The symptoms of estrogen dominance are such things as cramping, heavy bleeding, menstrual irregularity, endometriosis, polycystic ovaries, fibrocystic breasts, migraines and PMS. A major symptom of progesterone deficiency beyond the above is infertility and miscarriage, along with depression and anxiety.

In sum, the presence of gluten sensitivity and its resultant stress upon the adrenal glands is common but rarely diagnosed. Millions of women therefore suffer with symptoms that are correctable with often something as simple as diet, nutrition and lifestyle changes. The exciting aspect of treating both gluten sensitivity and adrenal exhaustion is that neither one requires drugs or surgery. The treatment is completely natural.

There are lab tests available that test for gluten sensitivity as well as adrenal fatigue. If your practitioner is not familiar with them please feel free to contact me.

To your good health,


Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN
Founder of HealthNOW Medical Center
Co-author of The Gluten Effect: How “Innocent” Wheat is Ruining Your Health