Adrenal Fatigue with Andrew Neville, ND
Nisha Jackson interviews Dr. Neville on everything you need to know about Adrenal Fatigue.

Dr. Andrew Neville is a graduate of the prestigious Bastyr University School of Naturopathic Medicine in Seattle , Washington . Dr. Neville has a degree in Naturopathy from Bastyr and this training has been most valuable in allowing us to fully utilize many of the new therapies we have instituted.

 Questions and Answers 

Q. If CFS and Chronic Fatigue Immune Deficiency Syndrome (CFIDS) have only bee recognized for ten years or less how could you have been treating them for forty years?

A. The problem has been around for a long time. If you read the history of this condition from our web site you will see that it goes back a long time and was known by many names at different periods. My own feeling is that as we added more and more stresses to life through the deterioration of our environment, the nature of the condition changed somewhat in response to these new assaults on the immune system. However, I still think that the basic underlying mechanism of the condition is the same as in the days of Drs. Harrower and Selye.

Q. Before it became popular to call this condition Chronic Fatigue you called it Adrenal Syndrome. Do you still feel that it is mainly a condition of the adrenal gland?

A. Like Harrower and many other dedicated researchers before us, we hold to the plural glandular concept for CFS and in our clinical healing work direct our efforts at all the endocrine glands as well as the liver, kidneys and spleen. However, time and again when all is said and done it is to the adrenal gland that we return since it does seem to be the capstone of the healing arch for this condition.

Q. What about the work being done at Johns Hopkins regarding the tilt table and the low blood pressure readings that have been found in some CFS patients?

A. I was pleased to see this work being done. I consider it an unconscious acknowledgment of this diagnostic procedure that was taught to me in 1956 by Dr. John Bastyr the dean of American Naturopaths. According to Dr. John, this method of diagnosis was well-known among Naturopaths for many years before he taught it to me.

I use this test, or rather an expanded version of it that we developed several years ago, on each CFS patient's every visit. We have found this test to be the most useful there is to ascertain the day-to-day progress of the CFS patient.

As an aside regarding ever rising medical costs I could not help but notice the obviously expensive tilt table used by Johns Hopkins. The exact same results are obtained by simply having the patient stand up for the upright reading. But then that would not be "scientific," would it?

Q. Do you find a relationship between Fibromyalgia and CFS?

A. Many authorities feel that Fibromyalgia is simply one of the manifestations of CFS. We are in agreement with this view. Stress (a la Dr. Selye) first affects the immune system and then, as this system weakens, various inherent weaknesses in the patients will begin to manifest symptoms. The mechanism here is similar to that found in any machine. All machines have their weak spots. As long as they are not stressed, these weaknesses remain undisclosed but when placed under ever escalating stress one by one these weaknesses will manifest.

Q. What about Epstein-Barr, CMV, Candida and similar viral type conditions in relationship to CFS? What about viral "triggers" for CFS?

A. That's a good question. If you go back to the history of CFS on our web page you will see that in the chart of Dr. Selye various infective agents are one of the main causes of stress to the General Adaptive Syndrome. Our experience, however, has not shown that any one of them is the "cause" of CFS. Rather, they are usually only "opportunistic" organisms that are able to flourish in the compromised immune system, much in the same way that various organisms do in AIDS patients. Though, of course, there is no known relation between CFS and AIDS.

Whenever we find such infections in our CFS patients we treat the infestation as well as the underlying condition. Even here, however, we are very careful in the agents we use to fight the organisms since CFS patients are usually made worse by most drug therapy. 

Q. In your earlier books you extolled the virtues of Adrenal Cortisol Extract (ACE) but now you tell us that it is no longer available in the US . Is it available outside the country?

A. There was a time when good, reliable ACE could be obtained abroad but at this time we know of no reliable source anywhere in the world. There have been some small manufacturers who have offered this item but we have not found it to be safe or reliable.

A careful comparison of our present non-invasive therapy for CFS and that in which ACE was used shows that very little, if anything, has been lost by abandoning the ACE.

Q. You mention that Calphosan is no longer available. My pharmacist is able to get this item for me. Would you still use it now that it is again available?

A. Very likely I would in selected cases. Although, since the discovery of the phosphalated serines we can do my mouth most of the good that Calphosan did by injection.

Q. You mention that many anorexics have CFS. Most certainly I am not anorexic. Perhaps I have another problem and not CFS.

A. Since CFS is caused by unremitting stress on the body, it may occur in individuals of all builds and natures. It is not so much that CFS patients are anorexic but that anorexic individuals often develop CFS due to the stress of their anorexia or of whatever is inducing the anorexia.

Q. Do you really cure CFS patients or does your treatment merely control the symptoms so that the individual can return to a fairly normal lifestyle?

A. Ah! You caught me on that one. If the individual is not a chronic hereditary type of CFS patient, we can usually return him to a more or less normal life-style but he still needs to avoid the sort of stress that brought the condition on in first place. I am reminded of the words of Jesus who when he had healed a believer stated, "Go thy way and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee." If a "cured" CFS patient will "go their way and sin (do that which caused the unremitting stress in the first place) no more" he will indeed be healed but if he returns to the ways that cause the problem in the first place, there is little doubt that a "worse thing" will come upon him.

Those individuals who seem to have hereditarily weakened adrenals can life good useful lives but must learn to live within their potential. With out treatment, however, we are able to continually expand that potential.

Q. What about CFS support groups? Do you recommend that we join one?

A. That is very hard to say. Some groups may be helpful but all too often my patients tell me that they are more confused and depressed after attending such meetings than before. I do know that there are individuals with CFS that I call emotional vampires. That is, persons who will drain the emotional strength from other CFS patients whom they have an opportunity to meet. In this way they are able to augment their own vitality but leave their "victim" much the worse for the relationship. It may well be that such individuals would want to frequent CFS groups to seek "new blood." This concept sounds somewhat arcane until you are exposed to it and discover that it is all too real.

However, there is no reason that a group could not be assembled that could really help CFS patients, but it would need to avoid such things as acting as a "pity party" or introducing so many concepts of possible help that all go away more confused than before. The Bible says, "Let thine eye be single." Ideally, the CFS patient should select one form of treatment and stick to it until the desired results are achieved. I know this is difficult to do when there are so many suggestions as to how to treat this condition, but this is the way we have been able to treat CFS successfully for over forty years now.

Q. There are many physicians who say that CFS is only an other form of depression and that it can be successfully treated by anti-depressive drugs such as Prozac. What is your opinion of this view?

A. In my forty years of experience with what is now called CFS, CFIDS, etc. I have found many depressed patients who do not have CFS and many CFS patients who do not have depression, but it is common for CFS to also be depressed and for the stress of depression to create enough unremitting stress to cause CFS. However, long experience has convinced me that CFS is not just an other form of depression and that there is a real and factual difference between true emotional conditions and/or "mental" conditions and CFS. Prozac may help the depression CFS creates in some patients but it will never "cure" CFS. In my own experience such drugs only mask the symptoms of CFS but allow the condition to progress unabated.

Q. Is there any drug therapy for CFS that you recommend?

A. Almost all true drugs (that is, those substances that are basically foreign to the body) create a stress to the immune system. These stresses usually further aggravate CFS. If, in the doctor's opinion, the action of the drug will reduce more stress on the system than its adverse effects will cause, then the drug therapy is the way to go. Long experience has shown, however, that in CFS patients this drug benefit does not occur too often. Again, in my experience, CFS patients have a very low tolerance for drugs of all kinds and a physician should think long and hard before giving them to such individuals.

A clear distinction should be made between drugs and the those substances that the body needs to help sustain and regenerate the weakened organs of the body. These are essential for the patient's recovery. Even here, however, the CFS patient's body can be so weak in the beginning of the treatment that it will not even accept the nutritional support that it desperately needs. In this case we must depend on the passive treatment of the Magnatherm and other external therapies at our disposal to build the body's vitality sufficiently so that it will be able to accept the needed remedies so essential to its complete recovery.

Q. There is much confusion about CFS and related conditions such as Fibromyalgia. Could you give us in a nutshell your overview of this condition.?

A. Yes, I thought you would never ask.

You must remember that when I first began to treat this condition there was no confusion--according to the best medical authorities, the condition simply did not exist.*

Since the condition had no name I coined the term Adrenal Syndrome and in early 1983 expanded my early work on this subject into a book of the same name. Frankly, I still like the term Adrenal Syndrome since I feel it more accurately characterizes the true nature of the condition than those usually given.

Like the flying bumblebee who is too ignorant to realize that the science of aerodynamics says it can't fly, we did not realize that we were treating a condition that did not exist and so we developed methods to cure those who, at the time, were considered only hypochondriacs or malingering neurotics.

While, we had the work of Drs. Harrower, Tintera, Royal Lee and John Bastyr to use as beacons along the way, the path was often very dark and we frequently landed in potholes, but gradually we were able to see light at the end of the tunnel and did finally develop a protocol that helped almost all who came to us.

The Basic Principles of CFS & FMS Treatment

1. The patient must be taught the nature of his condition and face the fact that it was what he did in his life that brought it on him. They need to understand the Selye chart (you can now down load a hi-rez copy of this chart for closer examination) and just what it means to them.

2. They need to take the ASI test (we are now putting samples on the chronicfatigue.org web site) so that their phase can be accurately determined. This is essential to proper treatment since the remedies for one phase will aggravate those in a different phase.

3. Once the ASI results are received and evaluated, the patient is placed on the remedies necessary to return the glands and body chemistry to normal for that phase. The ASI is repeated every few months determine the phase changes and thereby assist the doctor in modifying the patient's supplementation to fit the new ASI determinations. With the ASI test, we are now able to do by scientific determination that which we once could do only "by the seat of our pants."

4. For those patients able to come to our Healing Research Center, we use the various forms of therapy described in Chronic Fatigue Unmasked to passively regenerate the glands and organs of the body. Long experience has shown that these forms of regeneration are what makes the difference between a patient who makes good progress and one who only makes marginal progress.

5. The patient is taught how to reduce stress of all kinds. This is vital since as you can see from Selye chart it matters little from whence the stress cometh. It does its damage from any source. If the presiding physician does not attempt to help the patient in this way he has not fulfilled the needs of that patient.

The figure just below gives the treatment of CFS & FMS as simply as it can be done. Here we see that the improvement of the patient depends on the treatment efforts being greater than the stresses on that patient. This is a life-long battle. There are three ways that CFS & FMS patients who are still having problems can be helped. First, you can increase treatment (proper treatment--see above). Second, you can reduce stress and, third, you can do both at the same time.

It has always been my nature to do both. Anything else did not seem fair to the patient.