Brain fog or foggy thinking is a common complaint and symptom of adrenal fatigue. This is Dr.
Lam, founder of DrLam.com. In this video, we are going to be going through why, and
what the mechanisms are of this very, very common complaint and it is important to know
because memory, cognitive functions, are such a critical part of our daily life.
Those of us who work in professions that require a mental query, and nowadays that involves
almost every profession because of the presence of the computer work that is required, that
means that having a cognitive function that is in the tip top condition is required for
normal daily living. Brain fog is a situation where the memory long term is not impaired,
however, there is a sense that this lack of mental clarity in looking at things and recalling
things: memories in the short term. You can put your keys down, and are unable to recall
it within minutes. Telephone number recall may be difficult to sustain, you could be
doing multiple tasks and forget that one of them is necessary. Or, if you are in a very
detailed work spreadsheet that somehow the numbers don't make sense, the formulas don't
really work, and this can be a very frustrating situation.
It can come and go, it has no rhyme or reason and is sometimes related to certain foods,
especially when you eat fried food or food high in trans-fat. Oftentimes and it just
comes and goes, and when it comes it can be very devastating. You could be in the middle
of a presentation and then suddenly, you've lost your train of thought.
This is very different from dementia or Alzheimer's type symptoms where the body and the brain,
in particular, are going through some organic changes. If you look through a microscope
at the brain it is functioning normally. Structurally, there are no problems, there is no plaque
build up that can be grossly detectable. The brain function is basically normal, but the
brain fog exists. Now, there is no scientific explanation at this moment for this brain
fog, but we do find a strong association of people with brain fog with adrenal fatigue
as well as liver congestion.
What happens, as we know clinically, is that when adrenal fatigue is well in place, not
only is the body in a state of low energy, it tries to conserve energy as a compensatory
mechanism. The body in its infinite wisdom tries to slow down, it slows down the gut
and then you can have irritable bowel; it slows down the other functions, especially
in the liver, and you can have metabolic build up; but the liver is a very critical organ
because it is responsible for clearing the unwanted metabolites after food, after drugs,
after medications, and after supplements have gone through. It is like a giant garbage disposal,
that basically breaks down big byproducts into little byproducts to be excreted through
the kidneys and our bowels.
When the liver function slows, as in the case of adrenal fatigue, the microscopic cellular
structure is still normal. The laboratory tests are still normal, but the congestion
can build up. It is like a highway with cars that used to be going fast and are now slowing
down, causing congestion. When that happens, the body is not going to be able to process
or metabolize and it builds up.
A lot of these products are metabolic byproducts, fat soluble. They are what we call lipophilic,
they like fat. So, when they eventually find their way to the blood stream and the blood
carries it to the brain, it will basically stay in the brain because the brain is a lot
of fats. So, when this happens, the fat in the brain attracts the metabolites, and the
metabolites stay in the brain for a longer amount of time than they normally should.
The end result is a self-inflammation response because the brain doesn't like them to stay
there for a long time, and this inflammation causes a reduction in signaling, which is
what we call brain fog. I hope you understand this chain of events that goes on because
it is this sequence of how the body reacts and how the metabolites build up that causes
this situation to be sometimes quite unbearable. Recognizing the brain fog is not a terminal
disease but it is something that is a nuisance, and it is related to adrenal fatigue is critically
important because as your adrenal gets better the brain fog actually goes down.
If you try to get rid of the brain fog too aggressively with cleanses and detox and things
like this, for example, you can actually make the body worse because the body can go into
a separate set of re-toxification type reactions, which we will not go into here, but it will
be found on my website if you have more interest studying this topic. So it's fine to say at
this point that brain fog or foggy thinking is very common and be on the alert to understand
that this has an association with adrenal fatigue.
I hope you've enjoyed this video. For more information on this topic, head over to DrLam.com
where I have written over a thousand articles to help educate people. You can also call
me at 626-571-1234 for more information on Adrenal Fatigue and how to navigate it. Finally,
if you enjoyed this video, please subscribe to my YouTube channel. Thanks for watching.