Adrenal Fatigue is when your adrenal glands are not functioning optimally, because they've been over-functioning due to a heightened stress response for a long period of time. Eventually wearing them out.
And unfortunately, adrenal fatigue can cause hair loss.
When one has adrenal fatigue, they don't produce adequate levels of the stress hormone cortisol to optimally run their system. Too much cortisol production is called Cushing's disease, and no cortisol production at all is called Addison's disease. Adrenal fatigue is on the Addison's disease side of the spectrum. In adrenal fatigue, you can still produce cortisol, but you have a poor response to stress.
Initially when you're under a major stressor, your adrenals are producing too much cortisol before they get exhausted. Excess cortisol is catabolic. It breaks down tissues, including hair follicles. The hair loss you see with stress-induced, excessive cortisol production is usually falling out in patchy clumps. You can lose your entire head of hair.
So, why does adrenal fatigue cause hair loss?
Over time, if the stress doesn’t let up and your adrenals are not supported, your adrenal glands become fatigued and no longer produce enough cortisol. You will see excess shedding and slower hair growth, which results in thinning hair. That's because cortisol has a partner hormone called DHEA which helps you metabolize protein and fat. If you don't metabolize protein and fat appropriately, you're not going to grow healthy hair. Because your adrenal glands are run under the same hypothalamus system that controls your thyroid, your glucose metabolism, as well as your cellular metabolism, your hair loss can be profound. You'll shed hair more rapidly than you can grow new hair.
So how do you get your hair back?
First, you need to give your adrenals what they need to heal. I always start with nutraceutical hypothalamic support. If you don't correct the HPA axis, you will not be able to get your adrenals functioning normally. Using Genesis Gold® can make a huge difference in treating adrenal fatigue. I also recommend extra adrenal adaptogens - herbs and glandulars - to help your adrenals heal faster. But you must correct the misfiring in the HPA axis with hypothalamic support. Then, if your hormone production is really low, whether it be your thyroid hormone, adrenal hormones, or sex hormones, you may need bioidentical hormone replacement therapy to temporarily support adrenal function.
You cannot help what life throws at you, but you can change the way you respond to it. Your stress reaction is a learned response, which can be changed through many different modalities. You just have to find the one that works best for you.
If you have any questions about adrenal fatigue and hair loss, please join me in our Hormone Support Group, where you'll get access to our free Hormone Reboot Training. I hope to see you there!
Research Reference:
The role of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in neuroendocrine responses to stress,
Hair Loss and Hypothalamic–Pituitary–Adrenocortical Axis Activity, Involvement of the central hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis in hair growth and melanogenesis.
*Statements not reviewed by the FDA.
Can adrenal fatigue cause hair loss?
Yes — adrenal fatigue causes hair loss through two distinct phases that correspond to different stages of HPA axis dysfunction. In the early, high-cortisol phase, excess cortisol is catabolic — it breaks down tissues throughout the body, including hair follicles, and forces follicles into premature shedding phases. In the later, depleted-cortisol phase, insufficient DHEA production impairs the protein and fat metabolism that hair follicles depend on for active growth. Both phases damage the hair cycle through different mechanisms, which is why people with adrenal dysfunction often experience hair loss that changes in character over time — from sudden, sometimes patchy shedding early in the stress response, to diffuse thinning and slowed regrowth as the adrenals become depleted.
How does cortisol cause hair loss?
Cortisol affects hair loss through its direct action on hair follicle stem cells. The hair follicle maintains a population of stem cells that cycle through active growth (anagen), transition (catagen), and resting (telogen) phases. Research on the HPA axis and hair growth has demonstrated that corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH) — produced by the hypothalamus to initiate the cortisol stress response — directly activates mast cells around hair follicles and induces premature termination of the anagen (growth) phase. When cortisol is chronically elevated, hair follicles spend more time in the telogen (resting and shedding) phase than the anagen (growth) phase, producing the net loss of hair density known as telogen effluvium. Acute severe stress — a major illness, surgery, or extreme emotional event — can trigger a synchronized mass shedding of follicles two to four months after the stressor, producing dramatic temporary hair loss.
What is telogen effluvium and how does adrenal fatigue cause it?
Telogen effluvium is the most common form of stress and hormone-related hair loss — a diffuse, non-scarring shedding in which a significant proportion of scalp follicles are pushed prematurely into the resting phase and shed simultaneously. Under normal circumstances, approximately 85–90% of follicles are in the growth phase at any time. In telogen effluvium, this proportion inverts — a large percentage enter telogen simultaneously, producing diffuse shedding across the entire scalp rather than patterned loss. Adrenal fatigue triggers telogen effluvium through multiple pathways: cortisol dysregulation directly shortens the anagen phase; insufficient DHEA reduces the anabolic signaling that maintains follicle activity; and the downstream depletion of sex hormones (particularly estrogen in women) removes additional follicle-supporting hormonal signals. Recovery from telogen effluvium requires addressing the adrenal root before hair regrowth can normalize.
How does DHEA affect hair growth?
DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) is an adrenal hormone that supports hair growth through several mechanisms. It promotes an anabolic (tissue-building) metabolic environment that counterbalances cortisol's catabolic effects on follicle tissue. DHEA is a precursor to both estrogen and testosterone, and adequate DHEA levels help maintain the sex hormone balance that supports healthy hair cycling — particularly in women, where estrogen actively prolongs the hair growth phase. DHEA also promotes protein and fat metabolism, providing the substrates for keratin synthesis — hair is made primarily of a protein called keratin, and without adequate DHEA-supported anabolic signaling, the body deprioritizes keratin production under stress. As adrenal fatigue depletes DHEA, both the direct anabolic support for follicles and the indirect sex hormone support are lost simultaneously, compounding hair loss across multiple pathways.
I’m 74 year old with a lot of thinning hair, eyebrows gone and no hair on my arms and legs. Been told I probably have lichen Planopalaris Ehat can I do to correct this?
Hair loss can be hormonal. Low DHEA contributes to body hair loss, low thyroid to eyebrow hair loss, low estrogen and T3 to head hair loss. \ lichen Planopalaris is an inflammatory condition that causes scarring alopecia. Your Hypothalamus controls inflammatory responses and your hormones. You may be able to cease inflammatory responses by supporting your hypothalamus with Genesis Gold