The interesting thing is that DHEAS is a hormone with the power to cause anxiety in people. This causes many people with LOCAH have elevated levels of DHEAS in their bloodstreams. And DHEAS is over produced in LOCAH and is secreted into the circulation. This first step in the adrenal testosterone pathway is called dehyroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEAS). However, upstream from the block the precursor hormones back up, like in a log jam, and float sideways in the gland to a different pathway that makes testosterone. When a person has LOCAH there is a glitch in one step of the cortisol pathway, so it may initially work at 50% of normal, but the gland quickly bulks up (the hyperplasia) so it can keep up with the body’s demand for cortisol. This process involves cholesterol entering one side of the adrenal gland and then undergoing a 5-step series of bio-transformations before popping out of the other side of the adrenal gland and into the circulation as cortisol. One of the central functions of our adrenal gland is to make cortisol, the main hormone helping us deal with chronic stress.

It’s called hyperplasia, which means “grown larger,” because the adrenal gland of someone with LOCAH works “overtime” to keep up with the body’s needs, and must increase its size to do so. This tweener time of life is when our adrenal glands mature into their adult form. It is called congenital because people are born with it, it just waits 9-12 years to express. It’s called late-onset because people develop the symptoms of it a few years before puberty starts, around the “tween” years. This condition is called late-onset congenital adrenal hyperplasia (LOCAH). I have cared for, and published a paper on, many people whose anxiety was being caused, and/or driven, by an inherited condition involving their adrenal gland over-functioning.

Causes of overactive adrenal glands