The thyroid gland sits in the throat just below the Adam’s Apple. It has two lobes, a left and a right, and it produces hormones that control your metabolic rate. The more thyroid hormone your thyroid gland produces, the faster your metabolic rate. The less thyroid hormone produced, the lower your metabolic rate. Thus, your weight, energy, digestion, bowel regularity, mental focus, fertility and sleep are all influenced by your thyroid gland’s activity.
As a result, Hashimoto’s disease, an autoimmune disease of the thyroid gland isn’t just a ‘thyroid’ problem but a whole body problem. It affects your body globally and so to heal from Hashimoto’s you need an integrated holistic solution that isn’t just about the thyroid hormone thyroxine.
Why Thyroxine is Not the Sole Answer
Unfortunately, the orthodox medical treatment for Hashimoto’s is very one-dimensional and focuses solely on thyroid hormone replacement in the form of Thyroxine (T4) and on rare occasions, Thyroxine + Liothyronine (T3).
This approach neglects –
- the root cause of Hashimoto’s
- the autoimmune disease is still active and causing ongoing inflammation
- the continuing impact of the Hashimoto’s autoimmune process on Thyroxine’s effectiveness after the initiation of Thyroxine supplementation
- the effect of lifestyle, dietary and psychological stressors on the effectiveness of Thyroxine supplementation
- the nutritional cofactors needed by the body to utilise thyroxine effectively
And assumes that a Hashimoto’s sufferer’s body
- is working perfectly
- is not affected by the continuing autoimmune disease process
- has an optimal supply of the vitamins and minerals needed to activate T4 into T3
- is not being affected by any sort of stress
Because of these omissions and false assumptions many Hashimoto’s sufferers find they don’t feel 100% when they start on Thyroxine medication. And this is because Thyroxine is not the sole answer to healing from Hashimoto’s.
Why Diet is The Cornerstone of Thyroid Health
Don’t underestimate the power of nutrition in autoimmune management. The most powerful natural Hashimoto’s healing tool you have at your disposal is food. Hippocrates hit the nail on the head over 2000 years ago when he said “Let food be your medicine and your medicine be your food”.
What to eat & what not to eat
What you eat or maybe more importantly in the case of Hashimoto’s, what you don’t eat can have a dramatic effect on how active the autoimmune process underlying Hashimoto’s is. This is because certain foods can be the trigger and aggravator of autoimmune disease.
7 foods to avoid if you have Hashimoto’s
- Gluten containing foods. These are foods containing the grains or flour made from the grains wheat, barley, rye and spelt such as bread, pasta, breakfast cereals and pastries
- Refined sugar and sugary foods such as candies/lollies, soda/soft drinks, ice cream and cakes
- Dairy, more commonly cow’s milk dairy such as milk, yogurt and cheese
- Caffeine, mostly in the form of coffee
- Soy containing foods
- Corn and corn flour containing foods
- Nightshade vegetables, tomatoes, capsicums/bell peppers, eggplant, chilli
Testing if any of these foods are aggravating your Hashimoto’s symptoms is a worthwhile and easy thing to do. All you do is eliminate these foods, all at the same time, for 8 weeks and see if you feel any better. If you do, then slowly reintroduce them one at a time and look out for the return of symptoms. If you notice symptoms return after reintroducing a particular food, then remove it from your diet.
Now besides avoiding foods that aggravate your Hashimoto’s there are some foods that can be especially healing for Hashimoto’s.
7 beneficial foods for Hashimoto’s
- Sea vegetables like kelp (seaweed) because they contain iodine which is critical for making thyroid hormone.
- Brazil nuts because they are rich in selenium which activates your thyroid hormone
- Sesame seeds because they contain copper and zinc which are both essential for optimal thyroid function and hormone production. You need to make sure the seeds are broken open otherwise they will pass straight through you. So grind them before you eat them or use tahini.
- Pumpkin seeds because they are an excellent source of zinc which helps your cells activate your thyroid hormones.
- Spinach because it is rich in minerals like magnesium, copper, iron and zinc which are all essential for optimal thyroid hormone production.
- Prawns and scallops because they have omega 3 oils and vitamin B12 but mostly they are a rich source of iodine if you don’t like the taste of seaweed.
- Cashews because they are loaded with copper, magnesium and zinc. Important minerals if you want to boost a sluggish thyroid.
Lifestyle Adjustments for Hashimoto’s
Exercise: Tailoring Your Routine for Thyroid Health
Exercise is one of the best tools at your disposal for helping you feel like your pre-Hashimoto’s self. But how you exercise is equally as important. This is because while exercise can be a fantastic stress reliever if you push too hard it can also be a stress generator.
For example moderate intensity exercise (zone 2 exercise) releases energy boosting and mood enhancing chemicals throughout the body helping promote fatigue relief, weight loss, anxiety reduction and a brighter disposition.
However, frequent high intensity exercise triggers increased release of stress hormones like cortisol which suppresses T4 to T3 conversion, increases fatigue, suppresses metabolism, promotes belly fat accumulation and increases feelings of overwhelm.
Best types of exercise for Hashimoto’s –
- Yoga
- Pilates
- Power walking
- Zone 2 level jogging, cycling, rowing, swimming
- Strength training
Stress and the Autoimmune Flare: Strategies for Management
A common feature of Hashimoto’s and other autoimmune diseases is their episodic nature. The most common trigger for an autoimmune flare is stress and most autoimmune sufferers have had the experience of their problem worsening when they were under stress.
The reason for this is two-fold.
Firstly, in the case of Hashimoto’s the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline inhibit the conversion of T4 (thyroxine) into the potent thyroid hormone T3. This effect is an evolutionary artefact from earlier times in human history. In times past food shortages and famines were frequent occurrences so to help us survive the body would slow metabolic rate to preserve energy stores by suppressing the formation of T3.
This adaptation persists in our bodies today and is activated under stress by the release of stress hormones. Suppressing T4 to T3 conversion increases fatigue, increases weight gain, makes it harder to lose weight, causes hair loss, slows digestion causing constipation and bloating, inhibits egg in women and sperm formation in men and triggers brain fog.
Secondly, stress hormones trigger the breakdown of muscle and collagen. This can cause joint and muscle pain but more problematically in the gut, it causes intestinal hyper permeability, aka leaky gut. When the gut becomes ‘leaky’ molecules that should stay in the gut leak into the bloodstream and trigger immune activation (autoimmunity) and inflammation.
A leaky gut perpetuates Hashimoto’s disease progression and inflammation inhibits T4 to T3 conversion plus also reduces the sensitivity of your body to T4 and T3. Thus a previously sufficient dose of thyroid medication can become insufficient, lowering your thyroid hormone levels and inducing hypothyroidism again.
The Impact of Sleep on Hormonal Balance
Sleep plays a crucial role in healing Hashimoto’s naturally. Many people are unknowingly under-sleeping and this places huge stress on their body and as just mentioned this directly affects how effectively your body can use thyroxine.
At a minimum, you need to get 7 hours of sleep a night, but 8 hours would be better. And because most people will have waking moments during the night, to get 7 hours sleep you need to be in bed for at least 7.5 hours.
Sufficient sleep allows your body to rest and recover from the previous day’s stresses so it can heal, the gut especially.
The Mind-Thyroid Connection
We’ve been trained by conventional medicine to think of the mind and body as separate entities. So in conventional thyroid treatment, it’s just about thyroid hormone replacement with thyroxine. Start and end of story.
But as we have just seen stress and stress hormone release play a central role in the development and progression of Hashimoto’s disease. And as I’m sure you have experienced most of our stresses are emotional and psychological. These stresses are all to do with the mind, our thoughts and our interpretation of situations.
So for these reasons to heal Hashimoto’s successfully, we need to work on our minds.
Meditation: Calming the Immune System
Discovering how to see a situation in a different way (referred to as reframing) is a skill that can transform the level of stress we carry. And one of the best ways you can reframe situations is with meditation. Meditation allows you to step back from situations and see them and your response more clearly. Doing this can totally change your perspective to a situation, your response to it and the amount of stress hormones released.
Making meditation a regular practice in your life reduces your levels of stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline and calms your overactive immune system – which is exactly what you need to heal!
The Role of Yoga in Autoimmune Harmony
As mentioned earlier, yoga is a fantastic form of exercise to incorporate into your Hashimoto’s healing program. This is because yoga, unlike other forms of exercise, has mind-body principles built into it. Yoga reconnects your body, your breath and your mind and in doing so helps to calm you physically, mentally and emotionally. Practicing yoga helps you to bring balance to those aspects of you that are out of balance such as your immune system.
Building a Supportive Community for Healing
We can’t do things on our own and even conventional medicine knows this and is the reason why you are managed by a team of people, your family doctor and your endocrinologist. You may also have a personal trainer to help you with exercise. And of course, you have your friends and family.
Healing always works best when you have a supportive community around you but this can be a challenge sometimes when you want to take a natural path. Conventional doctors and specialists aren’t always supportive of this so this is where it’s essential to add an alternative medicine specialist like us to your support group.
While we have alternative approaches they are not mutually exclusive to conventional thyroxine supplementation. They are in addition to and make your care holistic.
Complementary Treatments and Remedies
Alternatives To Medications: What Works?
If you’ve had Hashimoto’s for an extended period of time then there may be no going off Thyroxine. The goal will be to increase the effectiveness of the thyroxine in your body. This is because many people who take thyroxine find that even though their thyroid levels are fine on blood tests they don’t feel as good as they did before their thyroid problem developed.
As highlighted earlier in this article Hashimoto’s isn’t completely solved by just giving thyroxine. The stress someone is under, their nutritional status, their levels of inflammation and their gut health influence how well their body will respond to thyroxine. So this is where supplements can be exceptionally useful to enhance the effectiveness of thyroxine.
Supplements: The Good, the Bad, the Necessary
- Selenium – essential nutrient needed for T4 to T3 conversion. Can also lower thyroid antibodies
- Inositol – has been shown to help lower thyroid antibodies
- Zinc – essential nutrient needed for T4 to T3 conversion
- Adaptogenic Herbs (Ashwagandha, Rhodiola, Ginseng, Maca) – regulate the stress response and stress hormone production
- B Vitamins – support energy production and stress resistance
- Magnesium – supports energy production and stress resistance. Also helps to calm the nervous system
- Curcumin – reduces inflammation
- Probiotics – heal the gut because most of your immune system is in your gut
- Vitamin D – regulates the immune system and inflammation
- Iodine – test your iodine levels first because if you take too much it can trigger hyperthyroidism. However too little can exacerbate hypothyroidism
The Importance of Symptom Tracking and Treatment Adjustment
One of the beautiful things about healing thyroid diseases like Hashimoto’s holistically is that it enhances the effectiveness of the medications you take so that often you end up needing less. However, problems and side effects can occur if there isn’t regular monitoring. Even when healing Hashimoto’s naturally it’s important to keep doctors and endocrinologists in the loop because they are the ones with the expertise to adjust your thyroxine dose so that you continue to feel better and better.
The Holistic Approach to Hashimoto’s
Taking an integrated and holistic approach to fix your Hashimoto’s will involve various therapies. On the medical side, you’ll have your family doctor and your endocrinologist. On the exercise side, you might have a personal trainer and or yoga instructor. And on the alternative medicine side, you’ll have a naturopath like us.
The success of this integrated holistic approach is its personalisation to the individual and the way we do this in our clinic is through testing. We are big advocates of ‘test don’t guess’ philosophy.
By testing thyroid hormone levels, thyroid antibody levels, cortisol levels, inflammatory markers, and vitamin and mineral levels we can pinpoint what needs to be targeted and what supplements will be needed.
So to get yourself feeling like your old self again contact us or click here to book an initial consultation with one of our thyroid specialist naturopaths.
