The Mood Cure: Take Charge of Your Emotions in 24 Hours Using Food and Supplements. Julia Ross
caloric needs vary, this rule of thumb allows our clients to maintain healthy weight and lose unneeded weight.
Iodine deficiency can be a contributor to thyroid problems and has caused big problems in parts of the world where the natural iodine supply is low. The American Midwest, for example, is called the “goiter belt,” given the high incidence of disfiguring neck swelling caused by an iodine deficiency in the local soil. Since iodine was added to table salt years ago, and since midwesterners now tend to eat food from many different regions, goiter has become an unusual sight. In fact, these days exposure to too much iodine from iodized salt may be a more common thyroid hazard.
Tyrosine is by far the most important thyroid food, but for the thyroid to make and properly use its hormones, it requires other nutrients as well. One of them, vitamin B12, which is made in the gut, is ironically often underproduced when digestion-enhancing thyroid levels are low. Other vitamins and minerals that are crucial to thyroid function are iron, selenium, zinc, folic acid, and the other B vitamins. Are you eating plenty of the colored vegetables and fresh fruits that provide these thyroid-crucial nutrients? When was the last time you ate some sautéed spinach or chard? If not, work more of them into your daily diet.
Could it be the antithyroid food you are eating? The foods listed below are well-known goitrogens (can cause goiters or swellings on the thyroid) because they interfere with thyroid function:
Wheat and its cousins rye, barley, and oats—These are the most exhausting foods on the planet. They’re the only foods that can typically make you sleepy (and bloated) after meals and lower your vitality level all day. They are known to cause thyroiditis, a common and debilitating low-thyroid condition. I talk about these grains and how to know if they’re a problem for you, in chapter 10.
Soy foods—As little as 3 to 4 tablespoons of soy per day can powerfully suppress your thyroid function and lower your metabolic rate.19 This applies to soy-based infant formula and protein powders, soy milk, and tofu. For further discussion of my concerns about soy, see chapter 10.
Cruciferous vegetables—So named for their cross-shaped blossoms, these vegetables include cauliflower, cabbage, collards, broccoli, brussels sprouts, kale, turnips, and swede. These thyroid-suppressing veggies also contain indoles, dithiolthiones, and other chemicals that activate enzymes that destroy carcinogens, so don’t eliminate them, just don’t eat them daily.
Millet—This is another grain that can be a thyroid suppressor.
Could it be chronic stress or emotional or physical trauma? Any of these things—particularly injury to the head or neck—can reduce thyroid function. Thyroid malaise can be part of the permanent aftereffects of post-traumatic stress disorder. Your thyroid pumps out its T3 and T4 as soon as a stressful event begins, and it can get overwhelmed if the stress is intense or prolonged. Some stressors, such as starvation or major injury, actually cause the brain to order a turning down of the thyroid to preserve calories and slow down the metabolic pace.
Chronic or severe stress can also wear out your stress-fighting adrenal glands, which are partners with your thyroid in providing energy and a positive attitude, especially during times of adversity. If supplies of Cortisol, the adrenals’ galvanizing antistress hormone, get depleted, your thyroid can be affected in several ways.20 The adrenal hormone Cortisol is required for converting T4 to T3, so if it’s not available because your adrenal glands have become too depleted to produce it, your thyroid function also suffers. If your Cortisol levels stay high for too long, as they always do in the initial stages of extreme stress, your thyroid may slow down its hormone production to compensate. (Otherwise Cortisol could literally tear your body apart, scavenging for nutrients that it takes from your flesh and bones to use for its battle with stress.) Be sure to read up on stress and the adrenals in chapter 6, if high stress has been a problem for you.
Could it be your tap water? If you drink unfiltered tap water, the added fluoride and chlorine can interfere with the proper functioning of your thyroid. Both chemicals can be mistaken for thyroid-vital iodine (all three are similar chemically) and, therefore, displace iodine in your thyroid.
Fluoride has actually been used to suppress thyroid function in people with overactive thyroids. Chlorine is also associated, in both animals and humans, with reduced T4. 21,22,23 (By the way, no major study has ever found that fluoridation is effective in reducing cavities!24)
Avoiding fluoride and chlorine is a good reason to drink purified water, preferably filtered in your own home. Make sure the filtration system eliminates both fluoride and chlorine, as well as the harmful hydrocarbons in unfiltered water that have also been shown to suppress the thyroid.
Could it be your medication? Certain prescription drugs can inhibit the thyroid. Estrogen (including the estrogen in birth control pills) and lithium are the most well-known thyroid-inhibiting drugs. Sulfa drugs and antidiabetic drugs also slow thyroid function.25 Other drugs can as well, so review any drugs you are taking with a pharmacist and your physician to find out. You can also study the information on the enclosure that should accompany all medication.
How Did You Develop Your Own Thyroid Problem?
For some people, only one of the above factors is the key to a thyroid problem, while for others many or all of these factors can contribute. For example, fluoridated drinking water alone may not suppress your thyroid, but in combination with daily soy intake and a genetic vulnerability, it can be part of a gang-up that can finally overwhelm your master gland. We’re exposed to so many biochemical bullies these days, it’s not always possible to be sure which one lands the final blow.
Reviving Your Thyroid
There are actually three kinds of thyroid malfunction. The most well-known and common is low thyroid, or hypothyroidism, which we’ve just discussed. The other two kinds of thyroid malfunction are autoimmune (Hashimoto’s) thyroiditis and hyperthyroidism.
If your thyroid is a problem for you, finding the right solutions for your particular kind of thyroid problem will benefit you, literally from head to toe. Your mood and mental clarity will improve along with your physical energy. Your heart will be immeasurably strengthened, your digestion and assimilation of nutrients will speed up, and you’ll burn calories better. Every cell in your body will benefit by getting your master gland back in action.
Pregnancy Alert
If getting pregnant will make you happy, repairing your thyroid may be a godsend. Otherwise, be very careful. Fertility and a healthy thyroid go hand in hand.
Most of our clearly low-thyroid clients haven’t had much luck with over-the-counter glandular thyroid preparations, perhaps because their potency is so unpredictable. By law, they are supposed to have the truly active ingredients, T3 and T4, removed. Fully potent extracts from animal glands can be had by prescription. That’s the primary reason we’ve had to rely on pharmaceutical help for thyroid revival; but if your thyroid problem is mild to moderate, over-the-counter glandulars can be helpful.
The other natural remedy that we have seen be effective with some people is the homeopathic thyroid products which contain potent though submicroscopic amounts of animal thyroid tissue. You may need to find a homeopathic practitioner who is familiar with these types of remedies (called “sarcodes”) or one who will research them for you. Or just buy them yourself and see how you respond.
Most of our low-thyroid clients have had to seek holistic