Gluten Intolerance Can Cause PMS

Your Stress Gland Balances Your Hormones

The part of the body responsible for helping you deal with stress, also creates energy, maintains an ideal weight and balances mood and hormones. It’s called your adrenal gland(s) – you have two of them and they sit on top of each kidney.

Adrenal fatigue is one of the secondary effects that gluten intolerance creates, which is why it can relate to PMS. In our stressful world, it is not surprising to learn that adrenal fatigue is all but epidemic. Normalizing adrenal function is an integral part of the job of clinical nutritionists.

 

Adrenal Stress Causes Many Hormonal Problems

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

Gluten Intolerance Adds to the Problem

Gluten intolerance, be it from celiac disease or gluten sensitivity is responsible for putting stress on the adrenal glands in two ways:

1.  Inflammation is created in a gluten sensitive individual’s digestive tract. If the inflammatory reaction happened only occasionally it wouldn’t be an issue. But in patients with gluten sensitivity this inflammation occurs chronically, every time they eat any gluten.                                                                                                                                               This continued inflammation acts as a chronic strain on the adrenals glands, thwarting their ability to perform all their functions. One of those is to make the precursor hormones that in turn make the sex hormones, both male and femaile.These hormones need to be maintained in proper balance to prevent such conditions as PMS, anxiety and infertility.
2.  Nutrient deficiencies can occur due to the damage created from inflammation, as mentioned above, as well as from the tissue destruction that occurs in the small intestine from celiac disease. Important nutrients such as B vitamins, calcium and iron, to name but a few, can become deficient. The lack of these nutrients has been mentioned in scientific literature as a cause of hormonal imbalance in women and mean alike, all as a result of gluten intolerance.

What is important to realize is that when your 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 is designed to perform both activities, but it can’t because it’s too overwhelmed by stress. 

Is Your Body Low in Progesterone?

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 is infertility and miscarriage, along with depression and anxiety.

There is an Easy Solution!

The existence of gluten intolerance 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 identify gluten intolerance as well as adrenal fatigue. If you would like assistance in this area I am happy to offer you a free health analysis - call 408-733-0400. We are here to help!  

Visit us at www.RootCauseMedicalClinic.com. If you have questions or need any help, I’m here for you! Call 408-733-0400.

I look forward to hearing from you.

To your good health,

Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN, CFMP


IFM Certified Practitioner

Founder of Root Cause Medical Clinic
Co-author of “The Gluten Effect”

Author of the eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What You Don’t Know May Be Killing You!”

Permission is granted to re-post this article in its entirety with credit to Dr Vikki Petersen & HealthNOW Medical Center and a clickable link back to this page. Dr Vikki Petersen, DC, CCN is founder of HealthNOW Medical Center and the author of “The Gluten Effect” and eBook: “Gluten Intolerance – What you don’t know may be killing you”.  She has been featured in national magazines, international medical journals and is a frequent headlined speaker.