Is Adrenal Fatigue a Real Diagnosis? A Doctor Explains with Dr. Allan Bacon

Have you ever wondered why your body seems to be working against you in your 40s, 50s, or 60s, even when you’re doing everything “right”? Have you found yourself stacking supplements, chasing the latest peptide trend, or panicking about a diagnosis like adrenal fatigue, only to still feel stuck? If so, I want you to keep reading, because this conversation might change the way you think about your body for good.

I have been in this health and wellness space for a long time, and I will tell you honestly, it has never felt more confusing than it does right now. On one side, you have people telling you cholesterol does not matter and to eat all the butter you want. On the other side, you have people telling you to stack a dozen peptides you cannot pronounce, panic over adrenal fatigue, and treat a 96 hour fast like the answer to everything. And somewhere in the middle of all that noise are real women in midlife with real hormone shifts, real time constraints, and real money on the line, just trying to figure out what actually works.

That is exactly why I wanted to bring Dr. Allan Bacon onto the show.

Why I Brought In A Truth Teller For This Conversation

Dr. Bacon has a doctorate in dental surgery, but that is honestly the least interesting thing about him for this conversation. He is also a nutrition coach, a physique and bodybuilding coach, a USA powerlifting coach, and he has been formulating supplements for major industry brands since 2009. His work has been featured in places like Muscle and Fitness and the Alan Aragon Research Review.

What drew me to him was not another expert with an extreme take. It was the opposite. He sits firmly in the middle ground. He is willing to push back on conventional medicine when it deserves it, and he is just as willing to call out the wellness world when it has gone too far, all without being condescending about it and always backing it up with actual research. In a space full of people trying to sell certainty, I found his objectivity refreshing, and I think you will too.

The Placebo Effect Is More Powerful Than You Think

One of the most eye opening parts of this conversation was about the placebo effect, and honestly the nocebo effect too, which is basically the placebo effect’s evil twin. Dr. Bacon walked me through a study on competitive powerlifters where researchers gave trained lifters an inert pill and told them it was a fast acting steroid. In one week, their lifts jumped by an average of 22 pounds across the board. That is an enormous jump for experienced lifters. Then, when researchers told half the group the pill was fake, their numbers dropped right back down to baseline. The other half, who still believed they were on the steroid, kept their gains.

This is not about being gullible. It is about how powerfully our expectations shape our physical outcomes. And this matters enormously for midlife women, because if we walk into this stage of life believing our bodies are broken, doomed to slow down, and destined to fight us every step of the way, that belief becomes part of the problem. Dr. Bacon was careful to say this does not dismiss real physical symptoms. It simply means our mindset is a genuine lever we can pull, alongside the physical ones.

Adrenal Fatigue: Real Struggle, Wrong Label

This is one I know a lot of you have heard about, maybe even been told you have. Dr. Bacon was direct about this one. Adrenal fatigue, as it is commonly used online, is not a recognized medical diagnosis. There is no diagnostic criteria for it, and when people who believe they have it get tested, their adrenal glands are functioning normally.

To be clear, this does not mean your exhaustion, your burnout, or your stress response is not real. It absolutely is. The issue is the label. What is actually happening in most of these cases is chronic stress and burnout, which is a very different problem with a very different solution. Instead of adrenal support supplements aimed at a gland that is not malfunctioning, the more effective path is addressing the stress itself, whether that is through better sleep, meditation, or targeted, well researched calming compounds like glycine, magnesium, or theanine. There is a real difference between naming your symptoms honestly and slapping the wrong label on them, and that difference determines whether the solution you reach for will actually help.

Peptides, BPC-157, and the Wild West of Self Experimentation

If you have spent any time in wellness spaces online, you have almost certainly heard about peptides, and BPC-157 in particular. Dr. Bacon pointed out something important here that I had honestly never thought about this way. Peptides are not one thing. They are an entire class of drugs, the same way opioids are a class of drugs. Some peptides, like insulin or GLP-1 medications, are incredibly well studied and can be genuinely life changing when used appropriately and under medical supervision.

BPC-157, on the other hand, is a different story. As of this recording, there are no completed human studies establishing its safety or effectiveness. The research that exists is almost entirely in animals. The theoretical mechanism involves stimulating blood vessel growth, which sounds great for healing an injury, but that same mechanism raises real questions about what happens when that growth occurs in tissues where you do not want it, over long periods of time, at doses nobody has actually studied in people. Dr. Bacon was clear that this does not mean it is guaranteed to be dangerous. It means we genuinely do not know, and a lot of people are experimenting on themselves with real uncertainty involved.

The bigger picture point he made stuck with me. A lot of influencers profit heavily from selling peptide protocols, and that financial incentive should make us pause and ask more questions, not fewer.

The Truth About Compounding Pharmacies

This part of the conversation hit close to home for me personally, since I use compounding pharmacies myself for things like micro dosed thyroid medication and progesterone. Dr. Bacon did not tell me compounding pharmacies are bad. What he explained is more nuanced than that. The concept of compounding, customizing a medication dose for an individual person, is genuinely valuable, especially for people who are sensitive to standard doses. The problem is quality control. Studies looking at compounded medications have found a significant percentage do not match their labeled dosage within an acceptable margin, and contamination risk tends to be higher than with standard pharmaceutical manufacturing.

His point was not to avoid compounding pharmacies altogether, but to understand what you are trading off, and to ask more questions about the specific pharmacy and product you are using.

The Midlife Metabolism Myth We Really Needed To Bust

Here is the part of this conversation that I think every woman listening needs to hear. Dr. Bacon referenced a large scale 2021 study that tracked resting metabolic rate across thousands of men and women from age 18 all the way through the late 80s. The finding surprised even him. Metabolism does not meaningfully change from age 20 to age 60.

I know how that lands, because it is the opposite of what most of us have been told for years. But the more important question this data raises is, if it is not our metabolism, what is actually happening?

Dr. Bacon’s explanation was refreshingly practical. Much of what we experience as a “slowing metabolism” in midlife is really the compounding effect of years of not building enough muscle in our 20s and 30s, combined with genuinely real hormone related symptoms like disrupted sleep and hot flashes that make it harder to stay consistent with nutrition and movement. He also referenced the SWAN study, one of the most respected long term studies on women through the menopause transition, which found that once normal age related changes are accounted for, women experienced almost no additional muscle loss, and only modest fat gain, across the entire menopause transition.

None of this means the menopause experience is not real or not hard. It absolutely is. What it does mean is that the story many of us have been told, that our bodies are simply betraying us and there is nothing we can do, is not supported by the data. And that distinction matters, because when you believe you are broken, you stop trying. When you understand what is actually changeable, you can take your power back.

What Actually Works, According To The Research

By the end of our conversation, Dr. Bacon brought it back to something refreshingly simple. He talked about four pillars that show up again and again in the research as the real drivers of how we feel, how we age, and how our bodies perform, regardless of gender or life stage: fitness, nutrition, sleep, and stress relief.

He also made an important point about strength training specifically. Research comparing men and women on identical resistance training programs shows women build muscle at the same relative rate as men. There is no special magic program required because of your hormones or your age. What matters most is consistency, progressive overload, and getting enough protein, something research shows intake actually tends to drop for many women during the menopause transition, right when it matters most.

If there is one theme that ran through this entire conversation, it is this. You do not need to choose between dismissing your real symptoms and blindly chasing every trend online. You can hold both truths at once. Your experience is valid, and the actual science matters. Learning to ask better questions, understanding the difference between correlation and causation, and being willing to update your beliefs when better information comes along is exactly what it means to become your own health detective.

That is exactly the kind of thinking we build together inside Continuing to Thrive, our ongoing membership community where we go deeper into topics like this one every single month, with direct access to me and to trusted experts like Dr. Bacon. If this conversation resonated with you, I would love to have you join us there.

The contents of the Midlife Conversations podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult with a qualified healthcare provider. Some episodes of Midlife Conversations may be sponsored by products or services discussed during the show. The host may receive compensation for such advertisements or if you purchase products through affiliate links mentioned on this podcast.