What is the Thyroid?

The thyroid is a butterfly shaped gland at the base of your neck. It’s responsible for metabolism, temperature regulation, bone health, and so much more. The main hormones that it releases are T3 (thyroxine) and T4 (tetraiodiathyronine). T4 gets converted in to T3 by the liver and T3 performs most of the functions for the thyroid.

Testing

The conventional thyroid testing of only TSH is not going to cut it. This simply tests for the amount of hormones that the thyroid is calling to be produced, and may be normal after a decade of having Hashimotos. We also want to test for the  thyroid antibodies that are TPO and TG. These actually let you know your thyroid is being attacked. Free T3 and Free T4 let you know how many hormones are actually being used by the receptors.

What is Hashimotos?

Hashimotos is an autoimmune disease of the thyroid. This means are own immune system attacks the thyroid. Why would it do this? Your body is actually tying to help you. The cause could be molecular mimicry. This is when you ingest certain foods that cause a leaky gut, like gluten, lectins, or saponins. Over time, these can tear a hole in your gut lining, causing leaky gut. When this happens, undigested food can make its way in to your bloodstream. It’s in your bloodstream undigested, and because it’s not supposed to be there, your immune system will go take it out. When this happens, the immune system tags the protein sequence in the food, and destroys similar protein structures in your body, like the thyroid. Other causes could be infections and environmental toxins.

What Damages the Thyroid?

Fluoride-

Fluoride can impair thyroid function. It was originally developed as a thyroid suppressing drug at 2-5 mg per day. It was never really used because they created something better. If you are drinking fluoridated water, your drinking enough to suppress thyroid function. Now, it is a toxic waste product of industry, and many countries already banned the use of fluoride in drinking water. It actually damages the bones, cause dementia like symptoms, and suppresses thyroid hormones.

BPA-

This is a chemical that is added to plastic. It is well known as an endocrine disrupter, or disrupting our hormones. It suppresses the thyroid and mounts an anti body response. It was shown to disrupt the hormone receptors related to the thyroid. Another one showing how it can affect thyroid hormone regulation and synthesis. Some manufactures have caught on to this, but use equally poor substitutes, such as BPS and BPN. Avoid these as well. Number 2 or 3 plastics tend to be the safest.

Heavy metals-

Heavy metals can accumulate in the thyroid, causing an autoimmune response. This study shows that patients with thyroid disease had higher levels of heavy metals overall.

The Livers Role in Thyroid Disease

The liver is responsible for detoxifying environmental toxins, and has trouble doing so if it’s over burdened. Also, it’s responsible for converting T4 in to T3, and can not do so very well if it’s over burdened. This is one of the problems with the medication Synthroid because not everyone can properly convert T4 in ti T3.

Stress and the Thyroid

Chronic stress can make our immune system hyper vigilant, and more likely to attack friendly tissue. Sleep deprivation is a fast route to chronic stress. When we deprive the body of natural inputs that our genes expect of us to keep us healthy, such as sleep, nutrition, and exercise, this is a huge stress on the body.

Nutrients the Thyroid Requires to Function Properly

Selenium- Helps improve thyroid hormone production

Thiamine- Reduces thyroid symptoms

Magnesium- Gets depleted more rapidly in people with thyroid disease.

Ferritin- This is the iron storage protein. Having normal levels of iron doesn’t necessarily mean ferritin levels are normal. It can be depleted by gut infections, not enough stomach acid, or not getting enough in through diet.

Iodine- Iodine is needed to create thyroid hormone. That is where the thyroid hormones actually get their names because it’s required to bind to it to be created. About 150 micrograms are needed per day, but you can easily get too much and cause thyroid problems.