I try to encourage everyone to lead a thyrosupportive lifestyle:
1. Adequate dietary iodine: iodine is essential for T4 and T3 and hence all vertebrate life.
No land plants seem to require iodine and few beyond the seashore have more than tiny amounts. All of the animals we regularly eat have significant amounts of iodine, especially red-blooded animals and seafood. All seaweeds are rich in iodine. Iodized salt is a reliable dietary iodine source. The intense fatigue experienced by some vegans (iodine occurs in both eggs and dairy) may be iodine-deficiency hypothyroidism (check for goiter). Dairy products contain iodine (see above); baked goods may. Commercial sea salt is not an adequate source of dietary iodine. Salted snacks are usually not salted with iodized salt for reasons of economy.
2. Reduce or eliminate exposure to any and all iodine displacers. The other halogens in various forms can displace or interfere with iodine metabolism. These are Fluorine (toothpaste, water supplies), Chlorine (water supplies and cleaning agents), and Bromine (industrial stack emissions, pesticides in food and spas, preservatives and conditioners). Although these agents may not actually cause hyothyroidism, they add an unexpected burden to thyroid metabolism; most of them did not occur naturally in the thyroid gland’s developmental past, precluding protective mechanisms against them.
3. Reduce or eliminate thyrosuppressive and thyrodisruptive foods such as raw leafy brassicas and soya products.
4. Reduce or eliminate thyrodisruptive medications: aspirin, HRT, warfarin and other anticlotting drugs, many antidepressants, and steroids, particularly cortisone and prednisone.
5. Thyroxine, T4, is converted to T3 by several selenodiodinases (1). Selenium deficiency may result in hypothyroid symptoms. Ensure adequate dietary selenium.
Recent work suggests that selenium supplementation may control or modulate autoimmune thyroid disease (5).
No plants seem to require selenium although they do extract it from soils. Avoid excess selenium. Excess selenium seems to quench itself in enzymes. Mercury, cadmium and perhaps other heavy metals may quench selenium in the selenodiodinases. Check for metal poisoning in cases where T4 production is okay but T3 levels are low with accompanying symptoms of hypothyroidism. Reduce or eliminate home and workplace exposure to mercury and cadmium.
6. If blood thyroid hormone levels are within or near normal ranges but symptoms indicate hypothyroidism, suspect incomplete body mineralisation. T4 and T3 are middle-management directive molecules, carrying orders. Downstream enzymes need to do the work to actualize thyroid hormone-mediated orders. Most of those enzymes require metallic cations. Deficiencies of one or more enzymatic cations could manifest as hypothyroid symptoms. Use a mineral supplement or high-mineral powdered kelp (not tablets), added to regular food as a salt replacement. Also, improve diet to include mostly organic whole foods and seaweeds.
7. Natural sources of thyroid hormone:
a. Fucus contains diiodotyrosine (DIT), the basic building block of T4 (two DIT are condensed in an esterification reaction by thyroid peroxidase in thyroid follicles to produce T4) (3,6). If blood thyroid hormone levels are low and TSH is modestly elevated (5.0-10.0) consider natural supplementation with powdered Fucus spp. seaweed, (bladderwrack). Take up to 5grams/day, one hour before a regular meal. Positive results may develop within several days or weeks. Some patients with functioning thyroid glands on low dosages of thyroid hormone medication have successfully used Fucus seaweed to either replace or wean themselves from T4 medications. In one patient with 17-yr Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Fucus was used for two years to successfully replace T4 medication with both a lowering of TSH after 2-3 months and a reduction in thyroid gland swelling.
CAUTION!! Fucus seaweed powder cannot replace T4 medication taken by those patients who have had a complete thyroidectomy or radiation ablation of their thyroid gland. DIT is weakly active as a thyroid hormone but cannot replace T4 or T3. This has been attempted several times with consequent severe hypothyroid symptoms before corrected with T4/T3 administration.
b. Also, since all red meat is red because of blood, which contains globulin-bound thyroid hormones (and other hormones), I urge marginal hypothyroid patients to increase their consumption of bloody red meats, raw or as rare as possible. (A short thought on supplementation: as omnivores and meat-eaters, we have a history of ingesting animals and their respective hormones; many of those hormones are the same as our own, particularly the thyroid hormones in mammals. Cooking is a relatively recent practice for hominids such as ourselves. I suggest that we developed as a species expecting at least some external sourcing of most of our blood-circulating hormones. De facto supplementation was occurring in our ancestor’s diets. Our endocrine glands may have developed over time expecting and even needing extrinsic hormone supplementation. Growl.)
c. A recent Japanese publication reports the detection of physiologically significant amounts of THYROXINE (T4) and LIOTHYRONINE (T3), as well as DIT and MIT in Laminaria Sp. (Kombu) and Sargassum sp. Seaweeds (7).
This has enormous implications for both dietary caution for Kombu eaters and for hypothyroidism treatments by healers. All seaweed health and nutrition studies using either Laminaria or Sargassum will need to be re-evaluated for the effects of probable cryptic T4 and T3 supplementation.
Those who have been eating lots of Kombu regularly might wish to stop for 60-90 days and see if they become clinically hypothyroid.
I strongly believe that many of the health benefits attributed to Kombu and other brown seaweeds are probably due to cryptic thyroid hormone supplementation. I refer to the lowering of arterial blood pressure, reducing blood triglyceride levels, promoting weight loss, resolution of skin problems, mood enhancement, etc. (7).
There seem to be no studies using either seaweed to specifically treat any thyroid dysfunction. If the T4 and T3 in brown seaweeds is available from either eating dried uncooked powder or seaweed pieces , or eating lightly cooked seaweed as in Miso broth or fast stir fry, we may finally have a natural, non-animal source of actual thyroid hormones. Dosages and adverse signs will need to be established.
I recommend diagnosed low thyroid patients be given 2-5 grams of powdered Laminaria seaweed daily with close monitoring. The most probable first symptoms will be nervousness. sleep disruption, increased heart rate, heat intolerance, irritability.
This discovery of T4 and T3 in brown seaweeds supports my contention that we are an externally-sourced hormone-supplement-dependent species, whose historical uncooked omnivorous diet provided dietary sources of most mammalian hormones and that the lack of these hormones in our diets has made us less healthy, endocrine-deprived, and especially susceptible to absorbing toxic hormonal mimics .
8. In Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, immune modulation is suggested. The idea is to mitigate if not reverse the immune management decision to attack and possibly destroy the thyroid gland. I recommend the immune-modulating botanicals, particularly Ganoderma mushroom broth and tinctures of Ganoderma and Eleuthrococcus.
9. Eliminate unnecessary X-rays to head and chest (dental, TB, CAT-scans, mammograms etc.)
10. Reduce exposure to potential thyroid hormone mimetics and confounders such as PCBs; polychlorinated biphenols resemble T4 and T3, which are biphenols, with their respective two aromatic rings. Especially try to reduce exposure to these and related substances for pregnant and nursing mothers and their young children. Many of the cyrptic thyroid disruptions which act on the unborn and neonates may not manifest until primary years as psychiatric disturbances or as development disruption during puberty.(3)
11. There is an especially vicious class of endocrine disrupters that have become ubiquitous in our human environment. These substances have been used to improve our lives. They are: flame retardants, resorcinol-based glues, and MBTE gasoline additive s used to boost octane after tetra-ethyl lead was banned.
The flame retardants, Poly-bromated di-ethyl ethers, PBDE’s, were mandated for children’s pajamas, bedding, stuffed toys, etc.; they are also in motel/hotel bedding, curtains, carpeting (all wall-to-wall), and upholstered furniture. They are present in all water, soil, and air. They are especially concentrated in mammalian milk, in particular human mothers’ milk. They are thyrodisruptive and pass transdermally from clothing into infants and children. It is the regular 8-12 hour constant contact with a child’s epidermis which allows the unavoidable slow accumulation of PBDE’s. They were mandated to stop fire deaths resulting from cigarette and other smokers setting fire to bedding after falling asleep with lighted smoking materials in hand. So, we are all secondarily poisoned by smoke even though we are miles from any known smoker. Not only does second-hand smoke kill, second hand protection from smokers is disrupting all of us.
Resorcinal, Dihydroxybenzene, has been used therapeutically as an alleged starting molecule for catechols. Industrially, it is used in the production of Rayon and Nylon, and the superb resorcinol/formaldehyde glues, particularly in plywood, chipboard, and sawdust composites for fake wood furniture.
As these products are abraided,scuffed, cut, or broken, tiny amounts or resorcinol polymer dust particles are released into our living spaces and are inhaled, where they rest on mucous membrane surfaces where nano amounts are continually absorbed and may be thyrodisruptive. The EPA hearings were especially opaque seemingly non-conclusive. In part, I suspect because of the huge world-wide human exposure to resorcinol polymer fragments. The effects of resorcinol on human thyroids is still being investigated.
I believe these resorcinol-sourced particles may be a significant factor in the increasing thyroid epidemic, particularly in the countries where the most resorcinol has been used.
Gasoline additives are being breathed by all of us. Many are thyrodisruptive.
. Ολες αυτες εχουν ψευδαργυρο και διαφορα αλλα συστατικα, οποτε δε νομιζω να ειχα ελλειψη, αλλα παλι δεν ξερω τι γινεται με το εντερο....
