Is Hormone Imbalance and Chronic Stress Causing Your Depression?

Dear Dr. Banerjee: I have been having a lot of fibromyalgia symptoms lately. I wake up tired even if I get seven or eight hours of sleep. I have also noticed severe low moods. How are stress and depression related? Can chronic stress cause depression? I read that cortisol and depression are related. Would you explain that a little bit more please? Nancy G, MO

Dear Nancy: The stress hormone Cortisol and depression are related. When your body is under chronic stress, your adrenal glands will secrete the hormone cortisol. This is not a problem short term. Actually it helps in your survival by mobilizing energy reserves. Long term elevation of cortisol is not good.

In a person with normal patterns, cortisol levels will peak in the morning and then decrease throughout the day. In people that are experiencing depression, cortisol will peak in the early morning but does not decrease to the appropriate levels in the evenings. This also explains why if you have high cortisol levels in the evening you may also experience insomnia.

As you may know, depression is not primarily a physical disorder, even though it is described as a disease. Handling depression can be confusing because there are many half truths and myths that are commonly aired on different medias like the news, magazines, etc. Some will have you believe that once you get depression you have to suffer with it for the rest of your life.

It is important to understand that depression is much more than simply a disease or a chemical imbalance. The only way to be better prepared to treat depression is to understand more about the cycle of depression that affects our mind and body.

Most depression is related to adrenal or sex hormone imbalances. Lower than normal levels of DHEA, cortisol, testosterone, estrogen or progesterone will trigger a biochemically-induced depression.  Neuroscientists at the National Institute of Mental Health, our nation’s leading mental health facility, have stated that most depression in the United States is caused by adrenal hormone imbalances.

Hormonal imbalances cause immune suppression, which leads to chronic infections.  People with undiagnosed chronic infections consistently become depressed simply because they are sick.  Most chronic infections do not cause obvious symptoms so they are left untreated.

One of the well-established side effects of food intolerances and food allergies is depression.  Also an inefficient protein digestion deprives the body amino acids from which you make many of the key brain chemicals.

The inability to eliminate harmful chemicals or heavy metals from body tissues allows these toxins to build up to harmful levels.  Many of these substances such as mercury and petroleum based chemicals easily penetrate our central nervous system, our brain and spinal cord, and cause depression.  One of the most frequently reported benefits of a safe and effective detoxification program is alleviation of depression.