How you sleep, how easy it is to wake up, and how much energy and
stamina you have during the day is directly related to the levels of
the thyroid hormones. The thyroid is heavily involved in so many more
processes in the body as well!
Hypothyroidism is a common health
condition in the U.S. and means that the thyroid gland is not active
enough. It may cause symptoms such as weight gain, tiredness, pale and
cold skin, constipation, high cholesterol levels, weakness, and joint
pain. The opposite condition is called Hyperthyroidism in which the
thyroid gland is too active. This may result in symptoms such as weight
loss, tremors, heart palpitations or rapid heartbeat, difficulty
sleeping, and so forth. But naturally, the thyroid is a sneaky organ and
your symptoms typically won't be "textbook" as described or all occur
at the same time. It could be something as subtle as noticing you just
can't make it through a day without coffee anymore.
The blood work
performed by doctors is typically a "basic" or "expanded" thyroid
panel, and can include variety of measurements. Normal values are
constantly changing. As a physician, I am only interested in the
optimal, ideal specific range of these values, whereas many outdated
laboratory values have a great range and a different motivation and view
point for what's normal.
Here's briefly how the thyroid gland
works and don't worry, I won't bore you with science! The thyroid is
like middle management in the corporate world. His office is located in
the throat, wrapped around our windpipe as two lobes. His big time boss
is the brain, who works up at corporate headquarters. That's how body
works - the brain is the master control of every organ, tissue, muscle,
and cell in the body. The thyroid's upper management is the pituitary
gland, whom he also takes orders from. Thyroid manages many functions of
the corporation especially the customer service teams, but instead of
sending out memos all day from his desk, he sends out hormones. Hormones
are the messages that act out what the brain commands. So he send out
hormones (messages) to his customer service team to go out into the body
and check in with every single cell (customers). They stop at every
cell to see if its doing okay - does it need more nutrients? More
oxygen? Anything? More important than that, the hormones get to call on
some large important customers. For example hormones help the heart
utilize cholesterol. His best customer service representatives are T3
and T4 and are his right hand team. For that reason, T3 is the most
active thyroid number measured. This is certainly not the complete
picture, just an overview of what the thyroid does.
Did you know
that there's a real definition of "being healthy?" It's the definition
adopted by all major medical textbooks, including Gray's Anatomy (the
textbook that's the corner stone of the entire medical profession, not
the television show). Being healthy is the ability to function at one
hundred percent mentally, physically, and socially. This definition
tells me that health is more than just the physical body, it's all
encompassing. And health is about function. Nowhere in that definition did it discuss how someone feels. It's about how well the body works beneath the surface and adapts for you.
Here are 9 causes of thyroid levels that are off on your blood work, and what further steps might you want to explore:
1) Environmental Factors.
The body is shutting down because it's exhausted. The two most common
examples of environmental factors affecting the thyroid gland are high
stress levels and a lack of sleep. Sleep is literally the body's time to
heal itself and depriving ourselves of that has a much greater effect
than we realize. High stress levels will cause excess cortisol in the
body, which is a hormone linked to increased risks of heart disease (and
other conditions) and keeps your body in the "flight or fight" response
mode. These are the two first things that I recommend all of my
patients to address. Here are some tips for sleeping well and lowering
stress:
a. Deep breathing exercises
b. Use of essential oils like lavender
c. Eliminate tvs, cell phones, etc. in the bedroom
d. Yoga, meditation, or stretching to promote a calm, clear mind
2) Gastrointestinal Function.
Not only does our digestive system break down food to use as nutrients,
it also contains almost 80% of our immune system! Food Intolerances are
a common cause of digestive problems and there is a strong link in the
research to Gluten Intolerance and Celiac Disease with thyroid
imbalances. Many people with suspected gluten intolerance also have many
other hidden undetected food intolerances that mimick similar symptoms.
3) Toxicity.
A common sign of toxicity in the body can be bags underneath the eyes.
Liver is our main organ responsible for detoxing the body and preventing
any garbage from hanging around to destroy our tissues. If a need for
detoxing exists, it can involve dietary changes, adding more vegetables
to the diet in the form of Juicing in order to make the internal body
conditions inhospitable for toxins, infrared saunas, and acupuncture to
balance energy meridians corresponding to these organs. One of my tips
is to drink a mug of warm water with half a fresh squeezed lemon every
morning 15 minutes before breakfast. It gets the liver active and ready
to work!
4) Hormonal Imbalances such as
pregnancy, contraceptive use, estrogen / hormone replacement therapy, or
bowel dysfunctions. Too much estrogen will increase the activity in the
thyroid gland. Estrogen is also used as a medication for which the
effects are over played and risks minimized. Research and results on
Hormone Replacement Therapy now show that it does not protect anyone
from incontinence, Alzheimer's, heart disease, and so forth but it
actually increases your risk for cancer. Other natural ways to resolve a
hormonal imbalance, especially around menopausal age are acupuncture or
a physician grade nutritional supplement prescription.
5) Consumption of soy products and non-organic dairy. Soy
and non-organic dairy both will increase estrogen in the body and
therefore affect the thyroid gland. I would recommend anyone (regardless
of your health condition) to eliminate both of these items from your
diet. Remember, both of these are very sneaky and hidden in many
processed foods.
6) Constipation. Too many toxins
being recycled in our bowels from lack of elimination will put extra
estrogen into system. My favorite, most effect and natural solutions for
constipation are acupuncture, dietary changes like eliminating sugar
and grains, probiotics supplementation, food intolerance testing, other
lab measurements that could enlighten the reason for constipation.
7) Nutritional Deficiencies
such as B12 or Iron deficiency. Some of the signs of nutrient
deficiencies are similar to symptoms of hypothyroidism. Reasons that one
could have nutrient deficiencies could include lack of nutritional
dietary habits or heavy metal toxicity (which is actually much more
common than it sounds). Hair analysis is the best long term blueprint of
the body to assess for heavy metal toxicity or nutrient deficiencies.
8) Immune System Dysfunctions
such as adrenal problems which increase cortisol in the body, increase
your risk for heart disease (among other conditions) and keep your body
in constant "flight or fight" panic mode. Adrenal problems are typically
measured with easy, at home saliva testing.
9) Chronic Candidiasis
which may cause symptoms such as white patches in mouth, memory
problems, issues with sugar handling, gas and bloating, mucous in the
stool, and cold hands or feet. Ask your doctor about an easy blood test
to see if you have an acute or long term candida problem. Solutions for
candidiasis may involve dietary changes, detoxification, and using
natural herbs or supplements to resolve candida imbalance
