The Mood Cure: Take Charge of Your Emotions in 24 Hours Using Food and Supplements. Julia Ross
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Checking off your symptoms on this list is a solid start. But go beyond it to make an even stronger case. Ask yourself, “When did my symptoms begin? What illnesses or upsets was I experiencing at that time? Have my symptoms always been there?”
Quite a few of our clients report the start of symptoms after a tonsillectomy (the tonsils are close to the thyroid). The start of menstruation, menopause, or a pregnancy is perhaps the most common trigger in women, but the incidence of thyroid problems among women doubles after menopause, and up to 30 percent of women with PMS have some kind of thyroid problem. Among men, the rates of thyroid dysfunction climb steeply after age 60, but we’ve seen many younger men with thyroid malaise, often starting with unusual weight gain in childhood. Most of our low-thyroid female clients began to gain unneeded weight and lose needed vitality in puberty.
If you’ve found that you have many of the symptoms on the list above, check them off and take the list to show to your physician. Thyroid malfunction is easily overlooked by many doctors, who simply run a single test, read the results with outdated reference ranges, ignore the symptoms thoroughly, and tell you to see a therapist or a diet doctor. For this reason, I recommend a very specific strategy for demanding attention for your thyroid. Otherwise you may never get any. I detail this technical strategy, from finding an effective doctor to testing your thyroid, to successful treatment, in the “Thyroid Tool Kit,” page 306.
What Can Interfere with the Thyroid-Brain Connection?
Your thyroid makes two primary hormones: one is called T4 and the other is called T3. “T” stands for the amino acid tyrosine, and the numbers 4 and 3 stand for the number of molecules of the mineral iodine in each hormone. Through these two hormones, your thyroid literally ignites every cell of your body and brain by activating its genetic coding.
Within the cells of the brain, your thyroid converts T4 (its more passive, storage hormone) into T3 (its activator hormone). This, for example, transforms the sleeping cats into a vigorous, healthy depression-fighting force. Without proper thyroid function, specifically in regard to T3 activation, the brain’s neurotransmitters cannot alter your moods effectively. You may have the blahs because without enough T3 your brain’s nerve cells cannot transform the tyrosine you ingest into enlivening cats. In fact, the areas of the brain that should contain the most T3 also contain the highest concentration of cats.
Without adequate T3 your brain cells not only can’t produce adequate amounts of the cats, they can’t effectively produce enough of other key neurotransmitters, like serotonin, either. If you identify with symptoms anywhere on the Four-Part Mood-Type Questionnaire, but the aminos don’t work for you, it’s very likely your thyroid that’s the problem.
Several things can interfere with your having a perfect thyroid-brain connection. Let’s look at each possible cause separately.
Could it be genetic programming? If you’ve inherited a slow thyroid, your brain will become sluggish right along with the rest of you. Do you have a mother or any other relative who has the low-thyroid symptoms listed above or who has been treated for them?
Most of our low-thyroid clients do have family members who share their symptoms of depression, low energy, weight gain, and cold feet. Typically these clues have been ignored, dismissed as inevitable family traits (like blue eyes), and never explored or treated. In other cases, our clients have been amazed to discover that some of their family members had actually been diagnosed and put on thyroid medication for years or had even had their thyroid glands removed surgically. No one had ever mentioned it until they asked.
Give this possibility some thought and talk with your family members about it. Any information you get can help you figure out whether you have inherited an impaired thyroid that may be negatively impacting your mood.
Could it be the food you’re not eating? If you are dieting or just not eating often enough (that is, less than three meals a day), you may not be getting enough “thyroid food.” Low-thyroid depression is a common consequence of dieting, when so many nutrients typically get depleted. During the first day on a low-calorie diet, as supplies of all nutrients (including tyrosine and iodine) run low, your body wisely responds by slowing down your thyroid function. With each succeeding day (or diet), your thyroid can turn down another notch. Over time, especially if you tend frequently to diet, skip meals, or eat as little as possible, your thyroid function can forget to turn back up. This is what accounts for the “yo-yo syndrome”: your thyroid may no longer keep calories burning efficiently, so you’ll tend to gain back all the weight you lose, and more, time and time again. And, of course, your thyroid won’t be able to keep your brain working efficiently, either.
We’ve found that protein and the amino acid tyrosine are particularly helpful to ex-dieters who complain of depression and the other symptoms associated with the blahs. Getting adequate calories and avoiding low-cal dieting is essential for keeping the thyroid gland turned on or for turning it up once it’s been turned down. According to the World Health Organization, that means approximately 2,100 calories or more per day for females and 2,300 or