Thyroid synergy?
If your thyroid ain’t happy, ain't nothin' happy!
Let's explore the power of our thyroid and and it's important role in healing and maintaining health. Our thyroid closely correlates to the strength of our metabolism, body temperature and pulse. This is where thyroid synergy plays a big role.
Listen up if you experience any of these symptoms:
Fatigue and low energy
Decreased stamina and weakness
You have cold hands and feet even when it is warm out
Difficulty losing weight, or easy weight gain
Aching muscles and joints
Depression and low motivation
Your internal body temperature is low (below 97.8 upon waking)
Skin issues
Brain fog
Poor sleep
Hair loss
Brittle nails
Low pulse / low circulation / low blood volume
Decreased perspiration
Mental and psychological issues
Developmental issues
A happy thyroid is your secret weapon to health, happiness, and energy.
Your thyroid is a tiny gland located in your throat/neck. It has a shape of a butterfly, but it is mighty as an elephant. It’s a tiny little machine that spits out goodness (thyroid hormones) all day long, and slows down late into the evening.
Thyroid synergy happens on all levels.
The hypothalamus, a tiny gland in your brain, signals to your pineal gland.
The pituitary gland, also located in your brain, in return signals to your thyroid gland.
All this happens via hormone signaling.
Your hypothalamus sends the thyrotropin-releasing hormones (TRH) to your pituitary gland.
Your pituitary gland releases TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) which stimulates your thyroid to release T4.
Quite literally, you cannot isolate these mechanisms like allopathic medicine tends to do. There is a deep synergy happening behind the scenes to keep your endocrine system running smoothly.
Once your thyroid is producing T4 it needs to be converted or activated into T3 or free T3. This part happens in your gut and in your liver. Once this step is completed T3 gets sent around your body to be used by your cells. Your cells need to be sensitive and healthy to absorb hormones.
Once thyroid hormones are in your cells, many different mechanisms are activated to give you:
Energy and heat, from converting food into energy
Fast metabolism, also from food into energy
Glowing skin
Healthy hair
Good Sleep
Happy Mood
Clear mind
Libido
Triiodothyronine hormone (T3) is essential for the maturation of calcium channels, myosin and actin (proteins which form the filament of muscle cells and motion of cells), and troponin (a protein involved in muscle contraction).
Calcium channels. “Calcium ions are privileged, because they fulfill a second critically important cell signaling function that includes the activation of calcium-dependent enzymes, gene transcription, muscle contraction, and secretion of neurotransmitters and hormones.” W.A. Catterall, in Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, 2009.
It's obviously pretty darn important to have enough T3!!
T3 replacement acts via two pathways, intranuclear and extranuclear.
Intranuclear effects include an increase in mitochondrial density and respiration, an increase in contractile protein synthesis (like stimulating muscles in your colon so that you have bowel movements), and an up-regulation of receptors that target adrenalin for energy production.
Extranuclear effects include an improvement in glucose transport, increased stimulation of L-type calcium channels with subsequent calcium mobility, and increased efficiency in calcium reuptake with subsequent improvement in diastolic relaxation.
There is also FREE T3 and FREE T4. 'Free' simply means they are not bound to protein and can float around in the bloodstream independently. They are readily available to interact with your body’s tissues and cells.
Understanding the process of thyroid synergy shows how important it is to test for all of these hormones:
TSH
T3 and T4
Free T3 and T4
But a lot of the time testing hormones via blood work is not accurate.
Fortunately, there are other ways to gauge your thyroid's health:
Your body temperature
Your pulse
How easy it is to maintain body weight
How fast or slow you digest your food
Your sex drive
Slow and thick speech
Hair mineral tests
Cholesterol levels (see article here)
Parathyroid hormones
Even mild and moderate hypothyroidism need attention. We don’t need to wait for a state of extreme hypothyroidism to start supporting our thyroid.
There are other thyroid markers and thyroid antibodies that need to be checked if Hashimoto’s is considered a possibility, but we will go into this in a later post.
Now, to the fun part!
Here are the building blocks that support thyroid synergy:
Iodine > an important micronutrient that is required for the synthesis of thyroid hormones
Selenium > converts T4 into T3
Zinc > supports the production of TSH
Iron > converts iodide into iodine
Saturated fat > for cell health
Vitamin A > activates thyroid hormone receptors inside the cell
Vitamin D > immune system support especially during autoimmunity
Vitamin E > protects against thyroid damage
Ok, hold on! Don’t run to the next health food store to get all these nutrients in a synthetic form to try to make your thyroid work better.
We want to supply these nutrients to our body via diet so that they are bioavailable.
Running a nutrient test via blood or hair sample can give insight into nutrient deficiency and help with a targeted protocol in special cases.
Glandular Supplements are superior!
The best food for your thyroid is desiccate thyroid glandular. It will contain all the nutrients listed above. Well, you will need to eat some butter or meat to get the saturated fat that all your cells are made out of, too. Do not get omega fish oils as they turn rancid in your body and use up the above nutrients.
Nowadays about 800 million people are affected by iodine deficiency disorders that include goiter, hypothyroidism, mental retardation, and a wide spectrum of other growth and developmental abnormalities.
Other factors that interfere with hormone production and conversion:
STRESS interferes with your entire endocrine system, causing your body to focus on adrenal hormone production and NOT thyroid hormone production.
Impaired LIVER function. Your liver does not only need a “cleanse”, it actually needs nutrients and glycogen to function and convert your thyroid hormones. Low calorie diets slow down your liver. Iron overload, estrogen dominance, pesticides, and herbicides all burden your liver.
Poor GUT health. Since conversion happens here too, we need to focus on gut health via the correct diet with foods that are easy to digest and support the correct gut biome. In some cases a parasite protocol may be needed.
LOW CALORIE diets are the worst for your thyroid function and metabolism. Restrictive diets reduce T4 conversion. This is a protective mechanism to prolong survival in times of famine and food restrictions.
INFLAMMATION, especially chronic inflammation, slows down the conversion of T4 into T3.
Are thyroid problems hereditary?
Yes, they certainly are! And this is a very important topic discussed by Borda O. Barnes, M.D.
With the help of medicine, we have negatively influenced our gene pool which has led to passing down weak organs and/or survival of weak newborns. It is of utter importance that newborns have enough thyroid hormone production in order to develop properly. A child born with a deficient thyroid gland is susceptible to dwarfism and other developmental disorders.
Therefore, if your baby/child seems weak and/or low energy, or doesn’t develop properly, and both parents have low thyroid function, it is important to investigate your child’s thyroid function as soon as possible.
I am a firm believer that low thyroid leads to infection, adrenal burnout, and gut dysbiosis, NOT the other way around. A lot of fad diets also contribute to poor thyroid health and dysbiosis. Cutting out carbohydrates and fruits when infection and SIBO are present will give short term benefits and long-term issues. A lot of naturopaths and functional doctors will make you run in circles and have you buy expensive coaching sessions and supplements instead of empowering and educating you to take charge of your own health.
Please remember:
When your thyroid is running slow and low for a prolonged period of time your adrenals have to pick up the slack in making up for the energy loss. This puts a huge burden on your adrenal glands which are not supposed to make all the energy for the day. Now add low carb diets where your body needs to put extra energy into converting fat into glucose and the downward spiral over time becomes more and more apparent. It is important to consider that our modern live are generally more stressful than our ancestor's lives. This makes maintaining proper thyroid health more important than ever before!
References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3433956/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/triiodothyronine
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