by Libby Weaver
Mineral deficiencies
Since hypothyroidism can be influenced by deficiencies in selenium, iodine, and iron, choose foods that are rich in these minerals. Eat Brazil nuts daily for selenium. Use good-quality salt, ensuring it contains iodine (check the label) and/or cook with seaweeds such as Kombu for iodine. Food sources of iron include beef, lamb, eggs, mussels, sardines, lentils, green leafy vegetables, and dates. There is a small amount of iron in many foods, so eating a varied diet is important. And remember that absorption is enhanced by vitamin C. If you do not eat animal foods, do not assume you are iron deficient. For some vegetarians, their body utilizes the iron from vegetables sources very efficiently. It is worth having your iron levels tested next time you see your GP/MD.
The other option is to take a supplement that covers these nutrients. There are some excellent thyroid support capsules on the market so seek out one of these if it appeals. Regarding iron, it can be good to have a test before you supplement, as overloading on iron is not good. But if you are deficient it can be challenging and a very slow process to get your iron levels up without supplementation. So it is good to know your blood levels of this mineral. Many iron supplements are constipating, but most people find this doesn’t happen with liquid iron supplements.
Here’s some more on iodine from a magazine article I wrote… just so you know how important this is!
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Iodine
Iodine is a trace mineral so essential to our health that our body begins to shut down without it. Our thyroid gland loves iodine, and it cannot make thyroid hormones without it. Symptoms of an underactive thyroid include a deep tiredness and sluggish, heavy feeling; dry skin or hair; feelings of cold; a tendency to be constipated; puffy eyes; and a tendency to a depressed mood. Increasing dietary iodine intake can make a difference, if poor thyroid function is the result of iodine deficiency.
Thyroid hormones essentially determine our metabolic rate as adults and our growth as children. Iodine is also essential to the IQ of the developing brain in utero and, sadly, studies are now showing that some children in the Western world are suffering from such low iodine levels that their IQ is being detrimentally affected.
Why is this so?
Soil is a poor source of iodine, and if a nutrient is not in the soil it cannot be in our food. New Zealand, for example, has volcanic soil, which has never contained any iodine. While the soil may not be a good source of iodine, the sea is somewhat better.
Food sources of iodine include all of the seaweeds, which you can add to soups, stews, casseroles, and salads to give them a subtle salty flavor while imparting all of the nutritional value of the minerals. A form of seaweed commonly eaten is nori, used frequently in sushi. Iodine is in small amounts in seafood, but even eating seafood every day will not provide you with adequate amounts of iodine. Plus, sadly, these days, we have to consider the heavy metal content of seafood and eating it daily is not recommended. We must therefore be conscious of how we obtain our iodine.
Salt was first iodized in 1924; however, it tended to go out of “fashion” with the advent of rock salts and Celtic sea salt. Although Celtic sea salt offers the additional benefits of a broad range of trace minerals, many brands lack iodine. You need to check the label of the salt you use. The concern with conventional iodized salts, however, is that most brands contain anti-caking agents that tend to have other additives that may not be ideal for human health.
The impact of iodine therapy for the maintenance of healthy breast tissue has been widely reported, although it is rarely discussed. The ovaries concentrate iodine, and studies have shown that the ovaries in an iodine-deficient state produce a form of estrogen associated with breast cancer. This has been shown to be reversible once iodine levels are optimal again.
Iodine is a difficult mineral to test for. Accurate tests require you to collect 24 hours’ worth of urine, and, remarkably, not all countries offer this testing.
Adults require 150mcg of iodine per day to prevent deficiency. It is far more beneficial, however, to individualize doses. Often higher amounts are initially needed to treat a deficient state, and this can be easily done with one to three drops of a good-quality liquid iodine solution per day, available from some health food shops or through a compounding pharmacist. It is best to obtain specific advice from a qualified health professional to learn how best to meet your individual needs, as you can overdose on iodine.
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Estrogen dominance
Too much estrogen suppresses thyroid function while optimal progesterone levels support its function. Apply the strategies for dealing with estrogen dominance if you suspect that this is the basis for your challenge with your thyroid gland. It is also important to note that knowing what led to an underactive thyroid gland is critical to your healing. For example, if long-term estrogen dominance has suppressed your thyroid function, no amount of iodine will resolve it. Restoring iodine status will support a thyroid gland that has become underactive through poor dietary iodine intake, though.
Elevated cortisol brought on by stress
Elevated cortisol as a result of stress decreases the levels of the active, fat-burning thyroid hormone T3, which then slows your metabolism. Added to this, high levels of cortisol urge your body to break down muscle to provide glucose for your brain, and reducing your muscle mass slows your metabolic rate as well. In the absence of stress, a healthy body converts FT4 into T3, but with elevated cortisol levels, the conversion of FT4 to T3 decreases.
Poor conversion of FT4 to active T3 also occurs if you restrict your food intake. Your body assumes that you must be starving, and therefore it must slow down the metabolic rate to preserve those precious fat stores. It may be frustrating, but your body’s primary goal is always for survival.
Elevated cortisol also inhibits the release of TSH from the pituitary—with less TSH the body produces less FT4. Apply the strategies for high cortisol outlined in Puzzle Piece 2, Stress Hormones, if this scenario rings true for you. Poor thyroid function can also lead to elevated cholesterol, and, if this is the case, once thyroid function has been treated, the cholesterol returns to normal.
Thyroid medications
Typically today, if someone has been diagnosed with an underactive thyroid, they are prescribed thyroxine (T4). Some people feel brilliant on this medication and all of their hypothyroid symptoms disappear, including their weight gain. If this has not happened for you despite taking this medication, you may want to consider a different approach. After years of taking thyroxine, it will not suddenly start to work if it hasn’t yet.
There are numerous brands of thyroxine on the market. If you want to stick with conventional medicine, tell your general practitioner you feel lousy on your current medication and that you would like to try a different drug. I have hundreds of clients who were happily taking one form of thyroxine and when the thyroid medication that is subsidized was changed to a different brand, many of their symptoms returned. Explore this even if your blood levels of TSH, FT4, and T3 are “normal,” but you still have symptoms.
In my opinion, an excellent option when it comes to hypothyroidism is whole thyroid extract (WTE). This is taken instead of any synthetic medication and, unlike the synthetics providing only one of the thyroid hormones, WTE provides all of the thyroid hormones. It is essential that you see your doctor about this and, if you so choose, be guided in the transition from a synthetic to the WTE, which is made by a compounding pharmacist. Like all medicines, WTE doesn’t suit everyone, so be guided by your body and an experienced health professional with this.
If you have not been diagnosed with a thyroid illness, but you exhibit numerous symptoms, do not rely solely on your blood test results to determine if your thyroid is underactive. Work with a health professional who will treat the symptoms, not the blood, and who will monitor both your symptoms and the blood work as you explore treatments. I learned this in a powerful way with a client whose story melts my heart.
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Case Study
The importance of testing thyroid antibodies is best demonstrated with this story. A precious lady arrived at my practice for assistance with her health, and when I asked how I could help, she burst into tears and said she had known she had an underactive thyroid for about 30 years. Patricia’s blood tests always came back as normal, and no one would treat her. She had gained over 220lbs over 30 years, and it all began when her mother passed away. Patricia said she had eaten poorly for about three to four months after her death, and put on weight, but her grief gradually eased and, as it did, she started to eat better again, as she always had. But nothing changed. Her size kept increasing. So then she didn’t just eat well, she signed up for a gym membership, and she started to eat even better. When I saw her, Patricia was unable to exercise due to knee pain from carrying so much weight (her description, and she thought she was “about 400lbs”), but she still ate in a way that did not warrant her size.
Of course Patricia had a huge amount of unresolved grief and of course there had been times when she hadn’t eaten very well. She had, at times, become incredibly frustrated that despite her efforts nothing would shift. But she had also had plenty of months and years of making extraordinary efforts for no reward.
Given that Patricia ticked every box when it came to symptoms of an underactive thyroid, I decided to request fresh blood tests and include thyroid antibodies, specifically anti-thyroid peroxidase and anti-thyroglobulin. Having been taught throughout my education that it was highly unlikely for thyroid antibodies to be elevated and an issue if thyroid hormone levels were in the normal range, I could understand why Patricia’s thyroid antibodies had not been tested—but from a symptoms perspective I could not.
To cut a very long story short, despite her latest thyroid hormone levels being in the “normal” range, albeit skewed one way (discussed below), Patricia’s antibodies were the highest I have ever seen. To put this in context, the “normal” range for both antibodies in this national laboratory is less than 50 (<50). Patricia’s thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin were both greater than 6,500 (>6,500)—off the scale and through the roof. When I phoned her to tell her, she was at first thrilled that all along there had been a reason for how lousy she had felt. She told me later that anger then surfaced for a life she felt she’d missed out on because it was not picked up. She had remained very shy, which she blamed on her size, and on reflection was very sad that she had not met a partner with whom to share her life.
She decided to seek out the most natural approach she could for her very underactive thyroid, and after considerable weight fell off her over the first three months, she booked her first overseas vacation. There is always a why. You just have to find it.
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Blood tests and “normal” ranges
The concept of a normal range is necessary, as cutoff points help indicate when something may be abnormal. Plus normal ranges guide us. I have great concerns, however, when we base the entire future of a person’s health on blood tests alone. The symptoms the body presents are a guide, just as normal ranges are a guide, and a thorough health professional will bring all of this information together to gain a broader picture to help determine what might be going on for a person.
According to Dr. Karen Coates, an insightful and pioneering general practitioner and co-author of Embracing The Warrior: An Essential Guide for Women, the normal range for some blood tests is calculated periodically by each pathology laboratory to ensure that the reference range printed on the test results is “accurate.” On the morning of this day, the first 100 blood samples received are tested for their (in this case) TSH levels in order to determine the reference range. Or it might be iron levels, for example. But! Why do people usually have blood tests? Is it because they are feeling particularly sprightly that day? No! Most often, the precise opposite is true! Yet it seems we base our “normal” ranges on these figures.
Furthermore, it is also important to understand how the “average” amount of a particular nutrient or hormone is calculated. Mathematically, the top reference point is calculated to be “two standard deviations” above the average, while the bottom figure is “two standard deviations” below the average. The arbitrary rules of this method dictate that 95 percent of the 100 blood samples taken must fall into the “normal” range. The statistical definition of standard deviations insists that only four or five results may fall outside this reference range, two samples below and two above.
The two points I want to make are: first, the reference ranges for some blood parameters are getting broader. The normal range for TSH (in my country) when I wrote the first draft of this book was 0.4 to 4.0. The normal range has since been expanded to 0.3 to 5.0 only four months after. As mentioned later, people at either end of this blood range will typically look and feel completely different and they will more than likely exhibit thyroid symptoms. If they are symptom-free, no problem, but my concern is that if we base treatment on the blood work alone and leave people to live with their symptoms with their result skewed to one end of the normal range, we are risking, not optimizing, their health. This brings me to my next point, which is that you can see from the start that this process is flawed, given it is done on individuals who are unwell. It is more challenging to create optimal health, prevent disease, and maximize quality of life for people when they are being guided with their blood tests to fall into a potentially unhealthy normal range.
Your blood tests
I urge you to get copies of your own blood tests and look for results being skewed to one end of the normal range. Let me explain.
The normal range for TSH where I live is 0.3 to 5.0. Although those numbers may seem small, someone with a TSH of 0.3 tends to feel and look completely different from someone with a TSH of 5.0. Additionally, if your results are not actually outside the normal range, you will usually be told (well-meaningly) that there is no problem with your thyroid. A common picture I see is a TSH of 2.5 or greater screaming out to the thyroid gland to make FT4. FT4 normal levels are (where I live) 10 to 20 units and usually, for someone with symptoms of hypothyroidism, their FT4 will be 11. This person typically feels exhausted, has trouble naturally using their bowels daily, has dry skin, very low motivation, brain fog, and their clothes are gradually getting tighter. Their thyroid needs support.
In this case, and depending on their dietary intake, I tend to start with iodine and selenium and sometimes iron, along with adrenal support, a grain-free diet, and a big chat about their beliefs and what their perception is of what life is like for them. Louise Hay teaches that thyroid problems represent feelings and beliefs around humiliation and feeling like you never get to do what you want to do (how many mothers does that describe?). Louise suggests someone with thyroid problems subconsciously asks, “When is it going to be my turn?” She suggests you develop a new thought pattern of “I move beyond old limitations and now allow myself to express freely and creatively.” Underneath diagnosed hypothyroidism, Louise suggests, are feelings of hopelessness, a feeling of being stifled, and a sense of giving up. She suggests you develop a new thought pattern of “I create a new life with new rules that totally support me.”
I include this information to offer you a whole picture of your thyroid health, from the conventional function of hormones and glands and blood tests; through the nutritional supports that are essential, including iodine and selenium; to the metaphysical. Somewhere among these three approaches lies your answer, not necessarily in one or the other. I urge you to explore all three.
Signs your thyroid needs support
Please note that many of the symptoms of an overactive thyroid are often the opposite of an underactive thyroid; some people may experience both conditions in their lifetime. Given an underactive thyroid is more related to being overweight than an overactive thyroid, this piece of the puzzle focuses predominantly on the underactive state.
Signs of an underactive thyroid
“Unexplained” weight gain<
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Feeling cold in your bones, or you notice you are colder than others around you—you are the first to put on a jumper
When you read symptoms of an underactive thyroid they resonate with you, yet you are told your blood test results are fine; when you see them though, they tend to be skewed to one end of the “normal” range
You have a tendency toward constipation, dry skin, and brittle hair
You have long-term estrogen dominance symptoms, such as PMS
You feel weary to your bones; you are beyond tired. Your body feels heavy and lethargic
Your reactions to stimuli—both physical and emotional—feel slow
You crave salt
You crave coffee and it doesn’t amp you up—your brain feels slightly more functional after you have it
Your groin aches
Your voice has changed; it is husky on occasions, particularly when you are extra tired (can also be a sign that the adrenals need support)
You feel like you retain fluid
Tendency toward a depressed mood, forgetfulness, and a sense of being easily confused
Hair loss
Difficulty conceiving
Challenges with menstruation
Recurrent headaches
You’ve had your gallbladder removed
Chronic stress
Family history of thyroid dysfunction or disease
