Have you been experiencing fatigue? Moodiness? Weight gain? Maybe just general feelings of unwellness? You might be surprised to learn that all of these symptoms will pop up if your hormones are dysregulated. And one surefire way to knock all of these systems out of whack is with an elevated blood sugar level. This kind of hormonal imbalance can show up as issues like chronic fatigue, unexplained weight gain, or even mood disorders.
Blood Sugar and Insulin: The First Hormonal Disruption
Insulin is the hormone in charge of regulating your blood sugar. When you have high levels of glucose (sugar) in your blood, more insulin will be produced in order to transport those glucose molecules into your cells. However, sometimes if there is too much glucose, it doesn’t matter how much insulin is produced to transport those glucose molecules, because the cells are already full and Insulin has nowhere to put the glucose. That’s when high blood sugar starts affecting a lot of other hormone systems.
How High Blood Sugar Triggers Stress Hormones Like Cortisol
Cortisol, or the stress hormone, is released more abundantly when there is a surplus of insulin in the bloodstream due to high blood sugar levels. This is because your hippocampus, which is the part of the brain that produces cortisol, does not know what to do and keeps on producing cortisol, which leads to other problems. This makes your body more inflamed, which then in turn also releases more cortisol. It’s a vicious cycle.
Catecholamines like epinephrine and norepinephrine become dysregulated, and when this happens, blood sugar and blood pressure levels rise. These hormones are typically produced when there is immediate bodily danger and you need to either fight or run away. But when there is no danger nearby, you can see how having these hormones coursing through your bloodstream all the time would cause you to feel stressed out and fatigued. And all of this happens as a response to elevated blood sugar levels
Blood Sugar’s Impact on Growth Hormone, Metabolism, and Fat Burning
Growth Hormone (GH) is an important hormone that regulates things like fat breakdown and protein synthesis. It also has a lot of other important functions in the body that help us to be at our best. However, when blood sugar levels are high, GH is suppressed.
When this happens, it is harder for your body to synthesize protein and breakdown fats. You think it’s healthy to eat a lot of protein, but when your protein isn’t being used correctly, it’s not doing anything for your body. Suppressed levels of GH make it harder for you to lose weight and be at your best. Other hormones like IGF1 and thyroid hormones are also dysregulated when blood sugar levels are high. This affects your metabolism and energy levels in negative ways.
Hormones and Blood Sugar: The Link to Estrogen, Testosterone & Fertility
When blood sugar is high, reproductive hormones are also affected. For men, it can decrease your testosterone. For women, it can decrease your estrogen. What does this mean? Lower testosterone levels in men often equate to muscle and strength loss, increased body fat, weaker bones, fatigue, brain fog, irritability, anemia, low libido and fertility issues. Lower estrogen levels in women have a variety of unpleasant effects including hot flashes, vaginal dryness, brittle hair, osteoporosis, fatigue, increased risk of heart problems, depression, anxiety, insomnia, and low libido.
These are not the only reproductive hormones that are affected by high blood sugar! Hormones like LH, FSH, DHEA, and DHEA-S also become dysregulated with high blood sugar. These have awful effects on your body including erectile dysfunction and infertility.
Appetite & Adipokine Hormones
When blood sugar levels are elevated, it contributes to a lot of problems when it comes to appetite hormones. Leptin levels increase, and this leads to leptin resistance. When your body is resistant to leptin, it makes it extremely hard to lose weight and manage energy levels.
Resistin levels are also elevated because of high blood sugar, which leads to further insulin resistance. When your insulin is not able to do its job effectively, those glucose molecules are staying in your blood and not going into your cells. This leads to fatigue and even higher blood sugar levels.
Adiponectin is another hormone that is affected by high blood sugar which also decreases insulin sensitivity, resulting in the same effects: tiredness, low energy, and even higher blood sugar levels.
How High Blood Sugar Fuels Inflammation and Autoimmune Issues
These hormones (IL-6, TNF-α, IL-1β) become elevated with high blood sugar, leading to increased inflammation and immune response. This raises your risk for autoimmune disease, and if you already live with an autoimmune disorder, symptoms can worsen significantly.
Hormones and Blood Sugar: The Chain Reaction Inside Your Body
Perhaps Pocahontas put it best when she sang, “And we are all connected to each other, in a circle, in a hoop that never ends.” All of these hormones are connected to each other, and when one is off, it affects everything and leads into a cycle that feeds upon itself and makes it worse and worse. This is often why just adding more insulin into the equation won’t solve your problems. Increasing insulin doesn’t just move more glucose into your cells. It affects every other hormone system in your body, making your health less and less manageable.
How We Help You Balance Blood Sugar and Restore Hormonal Health
At Hoyt Integrative Health, we’re not interested in managing symptoms, Band-Aid fixes, or prescribing medicines that don’t address the root cause of your problems. We understand how the human body works and how everything is connected and are willing to put in the time and effort to get to the root causes of your symptoms in order to heal you. Your hormone imbalance might be a sign that your blood sugar levels are too high and need to be regulated using methods that we have implemented and seen success in with hundreds of other patients.
Feeling tired? Dealing with fatigue that won’t go away? Stressed, moody, or struggling with hormonal imbalance? These symptoms may all be tied to elevated blood sugar and hormone disruption.
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