The Real Cause of Thyroid Problems (It’s Not What Your Doctor Told You)

What if your thyroid problem isn't really a thyroid problem? What if the reason you still feel exhausted, foggy, constipated, inflamed, anxious, losing hair, or gaining weight has nothing to do with a lack of medication, and everything to do with the hidden triggers your doctor never tested?

Tonight, I'm going to pull back the curtain and show you some of the most overlooked root cause reasons the thyroid starts to break down. I'm talking about hidden nutrient deficiencies, food triggers, chemicals in your water, your cosmetics, your kitchen, and your everyday routine. If you've never heard of these connections, it's not your fault. Doctors commonly tell patients that their thyroid problem is genetic and they need thyroid medication for life. So, if you've been told you have bad genes, if you've been told diet has nothing to do with it, or if you're still searching for answers, this may be one of the most important thyroid conversations you've ever heard.

You unlock this door with the key of compassion. Beyond it is another world. A world of science. A world of common sense. A world of sanity. You're moving into a land of both empathy and ethics, of nutritional knowledge and empowerment. You've just crossed over to Dr. Osborne's zone. Welcome to Dr. Osborne's zone.

Today we're tackling a big question: the cure for thyroid disease. Now, let me say this clearly from the start. If your thyroid is struggling, the real question is not just what drug do I take. The real question is why is it struggling in the first place? Because many cases, people are being told they have a lifelong thyroid problem without anyone ever doing a meaningful investigation into the underlying causes.

Tonight, I'm going to walk you through the most overlooked and most common reasons thyroid function breaks down. We're going to talk about nutrient deficiencies that can impair thyroid hormone production and activation. We're also going to talk about food triggers like gluten and dairy. We're going to talk about toxic chemicals, halites, artificial sweeteners, plastics, and environmental exposures that may interfere with how your thyroid works.

We're also going to cover something very important that almost nobody talks about. If you start fixing the underlying problems, your thyroid can begin functioning better. And that can change the way your medication affects you. In other words, some of the symptoms you think mean you're getting worse may actually mean your medication has become too strong. So, make sure you stay with me to the end because I'm also going to give you the key labs, nutritional factors, and practical next steps to help you investigate thyroid dysfunction more intelligently. And as always, if you want the show notes and access to my thyroid guide, comment thyroid below and I'll send it to you.

Okay, let's start with something most people have never been taught. Your thyroid does not work in isolation. It depends on the brain, the liver, the gut, the immune system, and a number of essential nutrients to function properly. So before we talk about what breaks the thyroid down, let me show you how the system is supposed to work. First, let's dive in.

Okay, let's zoom in on this image. How the thyroid works. It's under it's important to understand the pituitary gland in your brain starts the signal. It produces a hormone called TSH. TSH stands for thyroid stimulating hormone and it stimulates the thyroid gland to produce the thyroid hormone. Right? So it's named as a as a result of its action so to speak. Now the brain makes TSH. Now this is most commonly what your doctor orders. This is the test they use. They measure your TSH and if your TSH is too high, they will call you hypothyroid. Um, and this is the basis for the diagnosis in most cases.

Now, what I'm about to show you is a lot more complex. I'm going to try to keep it very simple so that you can understand that when your doctor orders a TSH and refuses to order anything else, just how asinine that really is and how inaccurate and inadequate it is as a tool for diagnosing. So the doctor orders the TSH to measure what your brain is producing to tell your thyroid gland how to make T4. Now T4 is inactive. It's a thyroid hormone, but it's an inactive version of it. Your body um will have to convert that T4. That conversion happens in the liver and so then it converts that T4 to T3. Now T3 is active thyroid hormone. So think of it a lot like a car. T4 is the car without the car keys. T3 is the car with the car keys in it. Now you can drive places. Remember the job of the thyroid hormone is to regulate your metabolism. It stimulates genetics for increased energy, for increased healing, for increased repair and body maintenance. It's the role and goal of thyroid hormone. But you have to activate it for it to work.

So if we back up just a little minute, the brain makes TSH, but to make TSH, that requires the nutrient magnesium, zinc, and it also requires adequate protein. So without these three nutrients, this is going to be skewed. It's important to understand that because your doctor's measuring TSH and he's not taking in context that to make TSH, you need magnesium, zinc, and adequate protein. So if your diet is low protein, if you're on a vegetarian or low protein plant-based diet, that may be inadequate for your body's needs to make TSH. If you're not getting enough magnesium, maybe on a medication that drives down magnesium. Those of you taking blood pressure medications, those medicines cause magnesium depletion. So, we have to look at nutrition in the context of thyroid to understand it better.

So, TSH requires nutrients. Then, inside of your thyroid to package T4 and put it together, T4 is a lot like a car as I mentioned earlier with four tires. The four tires of T4 are made out of iodine. So iodine, four atoms of iodine represent what's in T4. In other words, you can't make thyroid hormone without iodine. Iodine is a mineral that you obtain by eating foods rich in iodine, predominantly seafood or seaweed and some plant-based foods and some animal-based foods, depending on how rich the soil is in iodine where you live. But iodine is a requirement. Zinc is a requirement to make T4. But before you even get to T4 inside the thyroid cells, in order for them to properly do their chemistry, they need B vitamins. Specifically, they need vitamin B2. They need vitamin C. And they need a nutrient called inositol. And without these nutrients, it's very challenging for your thyroid to properly produce that T4. So all these things are required to get to T4.

Once we get to T4, T4 goes through your bloodstream, travels predominantly to the liver, and then the liver converts T4 into T3. Now that conversion requires selenium and zinc and iron and it's dependent upon your liver and your adrenal glands being healthy. Let's say you're stressed to the max, stressed to the nines and your adrenal glands are on the floor. This is going to affect your conversion. Let's say you're on multiple medications and those medications have to be processed by your liver. So your liver is already having to work really, really hard to work over there. It doesn't have maybe the full capacity to activate your thyroid hormone. So, these are all things that a good doctor is going to take into context when they're diagnosing you with low thyroid.

So, so again, as I said at the opening of the show, most doctors, what do they do? They measure your TSH. They say, "Oh, you must have bad genetics. You've got a thyroid hormone problem. That's why you have low energy, libido, muscle stiffness and tightness, hair loss, constipation, weight disruption. This is why your skin is so dry. This is why your joints hurt, and this is why your gut won't work." Right. Right. And they're saying this in the context of you have a bad thyroid because of genetics, maybe family history, um maybe something else.

So, I want to show you philosophically what you want to be aware of right so this is this diagram represents the standard medical view versus the root cause view or the functional view of thyroid hormone so the doctor's standard view is thyroid conditions are predominantly genetic and if you're if you're diagnosed it's not your fault. They believe that dysfunction is unavoidable. It's inherited destiny. It's a static diagnosis. It focuses only on what I just showed you, TSH levels. Um, it's isolated treatment. It prescribed, they prescribe lifelong usually levothoroxin. This is T4 medication. That's the typical one prescribed. Also sometimes referred to as cthroidid. Although some doctors will prescribe other kinds of thyroid medicine like tyrant. This is the predominant one. But very rarely do they give you any kind of lifestyle intervention or talk about diet or nutrition as a uh driving force behind thyroid disease. They assert that food and environment have no effect, zero impact on thyroid function. This is the standard of care, what we call SOC, standard of care. You go to an endocrinologist, this is 95% of the time, this is what you're being told. As a matter of fact, those of you watching, I'd love to know how many of you that were diagnosed with a thyroid disease were told what you see on this side of the slide.

Now, let's roll over to the functional model, which is thyroid disease is 70% of it is environmental. Autoimmunity is driven 70% by nutrition, toxins, and environment. Now, let me back up just a minute. There are different forms of thyroid disease. There's there there's hypo thyroid. There's autoimmune thyroid which is also hypo. It's just a different kind of hypothyroidism. And then there's hyper thyroid which is also an autoimmune condition. So there's hypo and hyper. Right? So hypothyroid is generally nutrition related. Right? Your body hasn't doesn't have enough iodine or selenium or iron and so it can't make thyroid hormone properly and so you're not making adequate amounts of the hormone. Um autoimmune thyroid is an inflammatory process. It's where you have immune cells that are producing antibodies that are attacking the thyroid causing inflammation. If you're a doctor, sometimes they will measure what's called TPO or they'll measure something called anti-thyroglobbulin antibodies. Um, these two types of antibodies are indicative of the autoimmune hypo low thyroid. Whereas hyperthyroid would be also be sometimes referred to as Graves. This would be called Hashimoto's sometimes referred to as Hashism for short. Um, but hyperthyroidism also there's different antibodies. There's there's something called a thyroid stimulating imoglobin or TSI. I'm getting too complex for a lot of you, but my point is there's ways that a doctor can differentiate between an inflamed thyroid that's causing your thy thyroid to be hyper or hypo. But doctors aren't trained in nutrition. So very rarely will you see them measure nutritional status to determine why your thyroid is not working if you don't have autoimmune thyroid disease.

So now a little more context let's come back over here on this side of the systems view. We know that it's 70% environmental 70% nutrition toxins and environment and only 30% genetic. So although genes do play a role, they are not the determinant. They aren't the determining factor. Functional also identifies exact blockage points in hormone synthesis. As I showed you a m a moment ago, it goes from your brain to your thyroid gland to your liver to your cells. We want to find where your breakage is, where you're blocked, and there's nutritional blocks that can be present all along that path. Reversible inflammation. It addresses gut health, cellular permeability, and immune triggers. There's multiple things that drive this inflammatory process if you have autoimmune disease. And then raw materials, the systems root cause recognizes that hormones cannot be built without specific nutritional building blocks. Hormones cannot be built. Your body requires vitamins, minerals, amino acids, nutrients to make hormones. So when a doctor tells you you have low hormones and then never mentions why you have low hormones, the next words out of your mouth should be why do I have low nutrient status? Is is my nutritional deficiency driving my thyroid disease, doctor?

Now, what you're going to find is most of them because they don't take nutrition in medical school. It's not generally a class that's taught, you know, in an advanced way that they a lot of them are going to shy away from even trying to give you an answer and they're just going to give you the answer which is nutrition has nothing to do with it and they're going to try to dismiss you. If they do that, ask for a referral. Ask for a referral to an expert, to a nutritional expert who can help you navigate this because if you're going to be on medication, you need to navigate these other things so that you can get to the root.

This was a paper published a review paper published on the importance of nutritional factors in dietary management of Hashimoto's. So if you have autoimmune low thyroid, this paper was written with that in context. And what you can see here in summary, observational and controlled trials have shown frequent nutrient deficiencies in hypothyroid patients. In the literature, there is evidence for selenium, potassium, iodine, copper, magnesium, zinc, iron, vitamins A, C, D, and B. The role of the proper level of protein intake, dietary fiber, and unsaturated fats, especially omega-3, has been indicated. Hypothyroid patients should often eliminate lactose because of intolerance and interactions with levothoroxin and gluten because of possible interactions of glyadin with thyroid antigens.

So you've got here in their diagram and their representation genetic factors such as uh what's known as HLA DQ genes. These are the same genes that that exist that that drive gluten sensitivity. You've got existential factors like who you are, whether you're male or female, whether uh what your age is, what kind of stress levels you have, right? And then you've got environmental nutritional factors, smoking, alcohol consumption, nutritional deficiencies. So in this case, they're mentioning iodine and selenium, vitamin D, infectious factors as well. So parasites, viral infections, bacterial infections, and environmental stress and medication all playing a role. So all three things converging into a more complex driving force behind the development of Hashimoto's. So understand that it's your doctors tried to simplify it to just put you on a pill and get you to be quiet, not question anything. But in reality, it's more complex than just taking a pill for the rest of your life. But the good news is it's not so complex that you can't do something about it.

So, as we as we continue to break this down, so going back to this diagram, we'll see this a few times, but your brain makes a hormone called TSH. It needs magnesium, zinc, and protein to make that hormone. That hormone talks to your thyroid gland in your neck. and through the use of B vitamins, vitamin C and inositol stimulates the production of the hormone T4 which requires iodine and zinc. That hormone goes into the bloodstream. It's inactive. The liver activates it. But in order to do that, it needs selenium, zinc, and iron. Once T3 is present and active, it communicates with your cells. It binds to the receptors. There's little receptors that stick out on the surface of your cells and that T3 connects to those receptors and it sends a message to your genetics and this is what upregulates your metabolism. This is why when your thyroid is low, you lose your hair because you can't grow it. This is why you're tired because you can't make energy. This is why your skin dries out because you can't regulate natural oil production and moisturization of your skin. This is why your joints hurt more and your muscles ache more because you can't heal and repair. This is why you can't exercise because the metabolism itself is being hindered.

Now, for this active thyroid hormone to talk to your cell that requires a special receptor that is made out of vitamin A and vitamin D. So nutrition plays a tremendous role from brain to cell and how your thyroid hormone works.

So now that you have a little understanding about the role of nutrition, let's talk about the source of that nutrition, which is the food that you eat. Your food can be your best friend or it can be your worst enemy. And there are three foods that we see drive thyroid problems more than any other three. And this is u this has been reported on in medical literature. This has also been my experience in practice and many other of my colleagues experience in practice. But if you could change three things today to improve your thyroid function, you would go gluten-free, you would go dairyf free, and you would go sugar free. Now, that may seem overwhelming to many of you, but I want to draw some connections for you as to why. It's important that you know why, so that you have uh better motivation, if you will, to embark upon these changes.

We look at some of the medical research on going gluten-free and the thyroid, right? So, in this study, this was done in humans. So, gluten-free diet reduces antibbody concentration. This is thyroid antibody concentration and regulates thyroid autoimmunization. The Medit Mediterranean diet reduces oxidative stress. So it helps reduce inflammation. This study evaluates the short-term effect of a Mediterranean diet, a gluten-free diet, and a combined Mediterranean gluten-free diet pattern on thyroid function and antibbody levels of patients. So they did this study where they put people on these diets, these different diets for 12 weeks. What did they find? They found that free T3, that the active thyroid hormone, free T3, increased significantly in people on a gluten-free diet and in people on a Mediterranean diet and in people on the combined Mediterranean gluten-free diet. So in all intervention groups with the highest increase in the people that followed a Mediterranean plus gluten-free diet, they also found the thyroid antibbody levels, the TPO and the thyrolobuline antibodies decreased after the intervention. So what happened in these patients with autoimmune thyroid disease is when they changed their diet, the autoimmune antibbody levels dropped and the amount of active thyroid hormone increased. Right? So we go back, we say, okay, what active thyroid hormone, that's this stuff right here, the active thyroid hormone that talks to the cell that allows for increased metabolism. This increased with diet change.

So coming back to some additional research on diet change and gluten, we know that gluten can elevate thyroid inflammatory antibodies for up to six months. This study showed it. They they actually looked at people's blood. They looked at 100 patients with autoimmune thyroid disease. And what they found with gluten exposure is that the cerological markers became undetectable 6 months after beginning a gluten-free diet. So it took that long. The antibodies and some of the studies that have been done on gluten that are negative, meaning they they said, "We put these patients on a gluten-free diet and it didn't change their antibodies." They didn't keep them on the diet long enough. Six months, the markers become undetectable. But that halflife of gluten antibodies, meaning that the time it takes for half of the antibodies to get out of your system is about three months. So we may see some early reductions at three months, but we're not going to see them go away for a little bit longer than that. And this study showed it took six months. So if you're trying to go gluten-free and your doctor is maybe monitoring your antibbody levels and they're not moving as fast as you wanted them to, remember that number. Six months.

Now, in this study, the effect of gluten-free diet on autoimmune thyroiditis, um, here's what they found. Our results seem to indicate a positive effect of the gluten deprivation on thyroid function and its inflammation, meaning it reduced thyroid inflammation and improved thyroid function, particularly in patients with Hashimoto's and with gluten related conditions. What's gluten-related condition? If you're not familiar with that term, I encourage you to visit gluten-free society. It's our hub and read more about the different types of conditions linked to gluten. But some examples would include hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's disease, Graves disease, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, scleraderma, dermatomyioitis, ankylosing spondylitis and myastthenia gravis and multiple sclerosis. Many different types of autoimmune diseases are gluten related conditions. And this is another study that was published on the effect of the gluten-free diet on thyroid autoimmunity. The gluten-free diet reduced thyroid antibbody tighters as well as increased vitamin D levels. So, improved vitamin D levels.

Now, why would a gluten-free diet actually enhance vitamin D? Because gluten damages the gut and it causes malabsorption of nutrients. So, vitamin D being one of those nutrients we absorb through our GI tract. But gluten also drives inflammation. And the more inflamed somebody is, the more vitamin D they need. So when you're inflamed, your body uses up more vitamin D to try to protect you. Vitamin D has immune regulatory and anti-inflammatory effects. So there's two mechanisms by which gluten can drive vitamin D deficiency, malabsorption, and inflammation. And in this study, they showed that just going gluten-free improved vitamin D levels.

We got another one here on the presence of anti glyaden antibodies in autoimmune thyroid disease. They were studying patients with autoimmune thyroid disease. And what did they find? They found polyglandular endocrine syndrome is the commonest cause of positivity of antigleen antibodies in the patients with autoimmune thyroid disease. And what does that really mean? Poly glandular endocrine syndrome. So gluten is known to cause polyglandular endocrine syndrome. This is where multiple endocrine organs become affected. The thyroid can become affected. The pancreas which makes insulin and digestive enzymes that gland can be affected. The adrenal glands can also be affected. Ladies, the ovaries uh and the uterus can be affected. Men, the testes can be affected. So the endocrine glands, the endocrine system itself, one of the most common drivers of endocrine disruption is gluten. Okay. And so what they found is that many of these patients had positive antibodies against gluten indicating they needed to stop eating it so that they can quiet the inflammation that it's driving.

Here's another one on this was a metaanalysis of many studies. So the effects of a gluten-free diet on autoimmune thyroid disease. This is the first meta analysis investigating the effect of gluten-free diet on hypothyroidism. Our results seem to indicate a positive effect of gluten deprivation on thyroid function and its inflammation, particularly in patients with Hashimoto's and gluten- related conditions, as we mentioned.

Now, one of the other connections between gluten and the thyroid is the microbiome. When we eat gluten, one of the side effects here is called leaky gut. Now, when your gut is leaking, it allows proteins and other toxic compounds that your gut is supposed to poop out, it allows those things directly into your bloodstream. Gluten can drive leaky gut. And it can also drive damage to healthy bacteria, the microbiota. And the microbiota have many different functions. One of their functions is they help regulate the immune system and regulate autoimmune reactions. That's AITD. That's autoimmune diseases. In this case, autoimmune thyroid disease. Um, so we know gluten drives leaky gut, which can alter the microbiome, which can contribute to the development of autoimmune thyroid disease. We know in human trials that when probiotics are given, there's beneficial effects um on thyroid symptoms. We know that celiac disease, which is a common manifestation of gluten, is highly linked to thyroid disease. They're they're part of the same family of autoimmune conditions. So bottom line, gluten can drive leaky gut, otherwise known as intestinal permeability. That can affect the microbiota driving autoimmune disease. But it can also, if you come over here, it's affecting the microbiota. It influences how we absorb and digest our food, but also how we make certain vitamins. The flora, the gut bacteria, make B vitamins and vitamin K. It's part of their job. It's part of how they help keep us nourished. We feed them, they feed us back by giving us B vitamins and vitamin K. So, this is where you see here micronutrient deficiencies. When we damage our healthy bacteria, we can develop micronutrient deficiencies. But also if we eat gluten and that causes damage to the intestine, this also drives micronutrient deficiencies through malabsorption. And so when we think about what I showed you earlier, which is there are several nutrients that you need for your thyroid hormone to be properly regulated, iron and iodine are reduced. This impairs the body's ability to make thyroid hormone. Selenium and zinc drop, which reduces our ability to convert T4 to T3. So understand the thyroid gut axis is the connection between how your gut influences the effectiveness or the role that your thyroid plays. In some ways it's altered permeability driving inflammation and autoimmune disease. In other ways it's altered nutrition. It's driving malnutrition or micronutrient deficiencies leading to poor thyroid hormone formation.

Okay. Now that we've established a thyroid gut axis and we know nutrition plays a major role, let's look at some of the human studies on nutrition and your thyroid. These are the studies your doctor will never have told you about. They will have dismissed if you ask them about nutrition. They'll say there isn't a connection. And what I'm showing you now is the connection so that you're armed with knowledge to make a better decision. And stay with me because we're going to get to shortly the testing you need to ask your doctor for and the um the doses specifically of of nutrients that you can take and how much you should take and how they might help you. So we'll cover that too, but let's start with looking at this study. This is a great uh review published on the role of nutrition on thyroid function. And so I'm just going to highlight a few things in this for you. Um, one on iron. You can see down here, um, iron is important for producing a protein, um, enzyme that lives inside of your thyroid gland called TPO, thyroid peroxidase. And this enzyme is important for the production of thyroid hormone. And iron is the centerpiece. It's like the center atom of this enzyme. Now I mentioned earlier there were some there were some tests the TPO um thyroid peroxidase there's an antibbody that we produce to TPO when we have autoimmune disease. So this is part of the problem with autoimmune thyroid disease is it destroys TPO right? But iron deficiency takes TPO and makes it and it makes it hard for the body to produce it. So when you're low in iron, TPO is reduced and thyroid hormone production becomes problematic. We know this is very common. Iron deficiency can be a risk factor for thyroid disorders during pregnancy because of the increased demand of blood volume and growing a new baby and that requires a lot of iron. We know that it correlates with changes in the activity of this enzyme and the reduction of the conversion of T4 to T3. So what's actually happening is the that iron deficient pregnant woman will make less of the active thyroid hormone that helps the baby grow. And this is why many babies when when this is the case can be born with creatinism and other health problems that are associated with poor thyroid hormone function as a result of iron deficiency. We also know even in non-pregant women that iron deficiency and anemia are linked to hypothyroidism. They're they're linked to low thyroid function, even non-autoimmune low thyroid function.

For zinc, we know that within the thyroid gland, zinc plays a role in this in the activity of that same enzyme, that TPO enzyme, which is essential for the synthesis of thyroid hormones. This enzyme catalyzes or allows for the energy of of of helping the protein thyrolobuline become iodinated. What that means is there's this protein, this very important protein called thyrolobuline and thyrolobuline is made out of tyrrosine. Tyrrosine is an amino acid we get from eating protein. This is why not having enough protein often times can also drive low thyroid function. But tyrrosine helps make thyrolobuline. And then zinc helps add iodine to tyrrosine and that's that's an essential element or an essential component for being able to produce thyroid hormone. So zinc plays that role. Zinc deficiency can also impair thyroid hormone receptor function. So thyroid hormones have to dock to cells to communicate to the cell to increase your metabolism and there's a receptor for that and without adequate zinc that receptor will not work as well. So you could have normal amounts of thyroid hormone. Your doctor could measure your thyroid and you feel tired and you're losing hair, but your doctor's like, "No, you don't have thyroid disease and it's possible that you have a zinc deficiency that's interfering with the hormone receptor." So that your thyroid hormone can't talk to your cell about improving your metabolism. We also know that zinc deficiency has been linked with thyroid enlargement in children. Goiters.

Now we come down here. Um, there's certain foods as well. I've mentioned gluten and dairy and we didn't talk a lot about dairy. I'll come back to that in a in a moment. But gluten, dairy, and sugar as being driving factors in thyroid disease. But there's also a food group called the brasica family and the cassava and millet. They they contain a chemical that can make it more challenging to produce thyroid hormone. And these a lot of people get scared of eating these. That's these foods here. I'll blow this up and you can take a screenshot. That these foods are commonly people are told to avoid because they contain thiocyanates which will block or can block thyroid hormone production but only if your iodine levels are low. So if you're if you have normal levels of iodine I wouldn't worry so much about avoiding or worrying about these foods unless you're allergic or sensitive to them. But um it's in the presence of iodine deficiency and that's what you can see here. Uh certain foods like those from brassasica, cassava, millet contribute to iodine malabsorption. However, this is only significant when consumed in large quantities under conditions of iodine deficiency. So iodine then this is referring to iodine malabsorption not in your gut but in your thyroid gland. Your thyroid gland takes iodine from the blood and it brings it into the into the gland itself through a a special pump. There's a what's called an iodine simporter pump that pulls iodine into the thyroid cells and these foods can block that especially if you're already iodine deficient. So if you're if if you want to know whether or not those foods could be problematic for you, get your iodine levels checked. And one of the best ways to do that is either an INA test, an intracellular nutrition analysis test, or something called a 24-hour iodine loading test. And we'll talk more about that when we get to the different tests that you can request to have ordered. We also know that cigarette smoke contains substantial amounts of these same chemicals, these thiocyanates. Uh and that's why cigarette smokers have a larger uh risk factor for developing the thyroid disease in goiters.

Now let's look at this study here. Malnutrition or the presence of numerous nutritional deficiencies in a patient's body can be the cause of thyroid disease. I I'm just going to underline that and let you take a snapshot of that and think about that for a minute because a lot of you, as I said earlier, your doctors are telling you that, you know, nutrition has nothing to do with thyroid dysfunction. Read this again. Nutritional deficiencies in a patient's body can be the cause. The cause, not a cause, not a contributing factor, the cause of thyroid disorders. Coexisting deficiencies of such elements as iodine, iron, selenium, and zinc may impair the function of the thyroid gland. Other nutrient deficiencies usually observed in patients suffering from autoimmune thyroid disease are protein deficiency, vitamins A, C, and B, B6, B5, B1, actually B2 should also be on that list as should vitamin B12. Um, as well as mineral deficiencies, phosphorus, magnesium, potassium, sodium, and chromium. Proper diet helps to reduce the symptoms of the disease, maintains a healthy weight, and prevents the occurrence of malnutrition. So, thyroid disease can be caused by malnutrition. So, if your doctor's telling you it can't be, show them that study. Maybe get a second opinion.

Let's look at this one. Vitamin C supplementation in patients with hypothyroidism requiring highdose levothoroxin. So this is a study where patients were being put on really high doses of of synthetic T4 medication leavethrooxin and they weren't as responsive and so that the authors of this study were theorizing that you know maybe vitamin C is going to help with this and so that's what they set out to do and the result was that vitamin C insufficiency was more frequent in patients with hypothyroid 19.2% 2% of people with hypothyroidism had vitamin C deficiency versus people who didn't only 7.7%. So this is quite a substantial difference uh between patients with low thyroid and patients with normal thyroid. The proof of concept study demonstrates the feasibility of studying vitamin C supplementation in patients on highdose levithoxin and detects a therapeutic signal. In other words, when they gave these patients vitamin C, a gram daily, they participants received either one gram daily or a placebo, um, they had improvements in functionality. So, we know that vitamin C plays a role and one of the jobs of vitamin C is it helps pump iodine into the thyroid gland. It's one of it, one of its jobs. It helps with that little pump I was talking about, that simperter pump. Vitamin C helps that pump work. We know effect of vitamin C on the absorption of levothoroxin in patients uh with hypothyroidism and gastritis. And so what they found in this study is that vitamin C improved the ability for patients to absorb their medication better. And especially with gastritis where they have, you know, inflamed GI tracts driving malabsorption. That's true also causing malabsorption of medicine. And what vitamin C does is it helps to reduce the inflammation and gives better absorption of the medication. Now let's think about that in the context of reducing the inflammation and giving better absorption of dietary nutrition as well. Right? So 31 patients with hypothyroidism um 500 milligrams of vitamin C serum concentrations of TSH and free T4 and T3 improved while on vitamin C. So the the the lab parameters that doctors were using to measure thyroid function all improved when these patients were given a small dose just 500 milligrams of vitamin C. In patients with hypothyroidism and GI pathology, vitamin C improves the abnormalities in the serum, free T4, T3, and TSH concentrations. This approach is helpful in the management of these patients. I' I'd like to just pull the audience. How many of you have ever been to an endocrinologist or your general doctors writing your thyroid medicine and they gave you 500 milligrams of vitamin C and said, "This is going to help." How many of you I'd just love to get your feedback. I'm venturing to say 0%.

Okay, more on nutrition and thyroid. So you can see here this was 165 women recruited in this study after satisfying criteria an equal number of age match subjects were also included as controls. And what they found was from the results of the present study, it can be concluded that the women reaching menopause could suffer from low magnesium and in turn may develop thyroid and other hormonal disorders. So the link between low levels of magnesium going into menopause and the development of low thyroid function and that's you know think about some of the symptoms of menopause. It's hair loss, it's lack of libido, it's drying of the skin. Um, these are all things that are also symptoms of low thyroid. They're also symptoms of low magnesium.

Here's a study on dietary folate, which is vitamin B9. And what they found in this study is low folate um showed an increased risk of the development of autoimmune thyroid disease. See, it's the first to explore the association between folate consumption and the likelihood of the development of autoimmune thyroid disease. The results suggest that lower folate intake may be an independent factor for causing or contributing to the development of Hashimoto's vitamin B9 folate.

This study on vitamin B12, we found that patients with hypothyroidism had lower vitamin B12 levels than healthy participants. Patients with hypothyroidism had lower levels of B12. Um, whether or not B12 is driving that um it would indicate in a sense an association between malnutrition and development of thyroid disease as we've been talking about.

Here's a research study where they treated humans with zinc and vitamin A and magnesium and they measured different outcomes. Um, we found a significant increase in serum free T4 which is inactive thyroid hormone decreased anthropometric indices and lower levels of serum CRP. This is CR HSCP stands for high sensitivity C reactive protein. This is a blood marker that indicates inflammation. And so what they found um is that patients that supplemented with zinc, vitamin A, magnesium um had lower levels. Their CRP, their inflammation came down by the end of 10 weeks. In the placebo group, um the CRP levels actually increased, right? So they didn't have that improvement. It actually went the other direction. Um, zinc, vitamin A, and magnesium supplementation may have beneficial effects in patients with hypothyroidism and in diseases associated with hypo or hyperthyroidism.

Let's look at this study ontol. Now inositol is a B vitamin like compound that has a regulatory role in making thyroid hormone. You see here myonositol has a determinant role in thyroid function and autoimmune disease as it regulates iodine organification and thyroid hormone biosynthesis for the formation of hydroxin hydrogen peroxide in thyroidites. Uh basically it helps the biochemistry inside thyroid cells better produce thyroid hormone and so TSH levels significantly decreased in patients with subclinical hypothyroidism with or without autoimmune thyroiditis after treatment with myinositol plus selenium. So they combine they combined selenium and anositol in these patients and they found improvements in their thyroid parameters. They had better thyroid hormone function and they had reduction in autoimmune thyroid antibodies. And this is just a diagram showing you some of the nutritional relationship. I'll I'll um kind of explain this because it's a little complicated. Think of this is as a thyroid cell, okay? And on the surface of the cell out here, you have TSH, which is that hormone that's made by your brain, right? It travels to your thyroid gland. This is the thyroid gland. And it hits this receptor, this what's called a TSH receptor. It when it hits that receptor, it stimulates growth, differentiation, and thyroid hormone secretion. So it's basically telling the thyroid cell, hey, we need more thyroid hormone. Please start making it. So what happens next? This little pump called an iodine simporter pump pumps from your blood. It pushes iodine into the cell. That iodine goes through a pendant receptor and then it's oxidized and organified. This is where inositol helps. Inositol is also present right here. MI that stands for myoinositol. It helps to communicate to this area of the cell to stimulate this reaction, this chemical reaction that helps iodine bind to thyrolobuline. So basically helps the thyroid gland start producing thyroid hormone. I'm trying to decomplicate it for you. So, all that being said, the end result of all of this is you get several of these reactions that occur and then you end up with T3 and T4 and then those get exported out of the cell into your blood and then they travel to your cells to the cells of your body and increase your metabolic function and this is the role here that anositol plays. So, anostol plays a role in that. Now, we can say there's iodine right here. Remember we talked about zinc being important here. We talked about copper being important in this chemical reaction. We talked about iron being important in that reaction. But you can also see right here calcium. Calcium is important. It picks it basically calcium picks the message up fromositol and delivers that message to make hydrogen peroxide to help produce thyroid hormone proteins. So calcium is also playing a role in this process. Okay, moving this out of the way. I know maybe I went a little too chemically deep there, but hopefully that was helpful for some of you who like that stuff. Um, this was a really good study done where they were just looking at um patients and they were looking at their markers um and then they were looking at whether there was any kind of nutritional deficiencies correlating with low thyroid function or low thyroid uh markers. And so according to their results deficiencies of vitamin B2, B12, B9, vitamin D significantly affected thyroid function. Other elemental micronutrients such as calcium, copper, choline, iron, and zinc have a significant correlation with serum levels of free T3, meaning those nutrients helped improve the active thyroid hormone levels in patients. They also found associations with the amino acids asparagene um as well as serereine that were found to have strong positive correlation with TSH levels. So regulating the master regulatory from the brain and then they found that veene and leucine and arginine exhibited significant positive correlation with serum levels of T4. So those amino acids all help TSH help T4. Our studies suggest strong evidence for the association of the levels of micronutrients with thyroid markers with a special note on the effect of serum levels of certain amino acids, which is not this is one of the few studies that's ever even looked at those things. When doctors say nutrition has nothing to do with thyroid function, it's because they've been neglectful in ever even trying to measure any of this. But we do have research that that shows these connections. And this is kind of a summary of that study and what you can see. So TSH and auto antibodies were linked to folate deficiency. And then we have um minerals correlating with active hormone levels. We require zinc, copper, iron and calcium. We know that improvements in T4 um accompanied with zinc, adequate zinc, copper, calcium and iron. We know that vitamin D has a positive impact on T3 levels on making adequate levels of T3. Um, we know that oh well this is this is a summary down here. Carnitine has impact on thyroid peroxidase. So it reduces antibodies against the thyroid. Um, we know that anositol improves T4 and T3 levels as I just showed you. And then over here we have linkages with these amino acids. We know that asparagene and serarine improve TSH. We know that veiling lucine and arginine boost T4. Um, so these are all nutritional relationships that your doctor has told you don't exist that I'm trying to teach you do exist so that you have better capacity to understand how to ask for proper nutrition when you're communicating to your doctor. So now don't ever let anybody tell you that there's no relationship between nutrition and the thyroid.

Now let's talk about some environmental pieces here as well. Thyroid hormone disruptors. There are a number of chemicals that you're exposed to on a regular basis that can damage your thyroid and cause thyroid disease. And so, this is a small list. Get a screenshot of this study, but phalates, which are plastics. So, we also see phalates in women's hygiene products and cosmetic products. So aside from just plastic containers and and straws and plastic cups and linings of of paper um paper cartons that are ser that food is served in like phalates are a big part of that and so you can see here they induce hyperactivity of the iodine transporter driving the potential for graves for hyperthyroid disease. We know thiocyanates these are the chemical compounds found in all those foods that I showed you. They can drive iodine reduction and hypothyroidism. The the same is also true by the way of soy and this chemical right here from nitrogenbased fertilizers called perchlorates and nitrates uh they block thyroid peroxidase enzyme causing or driving low thyroid. We know that PCBs um which are common contaminants in our environment can drive hypo and hyperthyroidism. We know that certain pesticides and fungicides used on our crops can drive hypo and hyperthyroidism, right? So, this is part of why you hear this message, eat organic. You know, when you're when you're thinking about your thyroid gland, it's very sensitive organ to environmental toxins and chemicals. And if you're eating organic, you're going to reduce your exposures. If you're not heating your food up in plastics or storing your food in plastics or buying your food wrapped in plastic containers, it's going to reduce your overall exposure. All the buzz right now on microlastics and this is why these things are dangerous and they cause problems. You see here in this study there's growing evidence that exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals such as BPA synthalates polycllorinated bifphinels or PCBs poly brominated dphenol ethers um or PBDE and bifphenels PBS and dchloro dphenol tricchloroeththane. I know these are big words DDT and atrizine which is a which is a weed killer all associated with pituitary axis abnormalities so that can affect hormone receptors and thyroid pathways. So we want to reduce our exposure to these things again as much as possible. The researchers have been screaming you know for decades about these problems.

Here's a nice review um a review uh for 25 years of environmental risk factor studies. And so here's it's kind of broken down into two main diagrams. Here you can see for thyroid cancers the some of the chemicals associated with the risk dioxins and dioxin-like compounds pesticides plastics or plasticizers per chlorates. Remember when everybody was wearing their damn masks all the time? I mean they were just loading themselves up. This is one of the arguments that that I had with during that time frame was like why would you put something over your face that just subjects you to massive quantities of chemicals that disrupts your endocrine system. It and disrupts your immune system and makes you more prone to getting sick. Brominated flame retardants. These are what make um your fabrics in your curtains, on your carpet, on your couch upholstery that makes them not light on fire right away. They spray these uh these fabrics with bromines which compete for iodine. They push iodine out of your thyroid gland. Heavy metals, nitrates, metaloids, perfllorinated compounds or fluoride, um particular uh particulate matter and air pollution. And then over so these are all thyroid cancer risks. And then we have thyroid health and endocrine disrupting risk. So we have benzopenone and four non no oxyphenol inhibits tpo which is that hormone that helps you make thyroid hormone. We know PCBs um affect the thyroid. We know that DDT as I mentioned earlier and TCDD causes liver damage that can impact how your T3 is T4 is converted to T3.

Um, so a lot of different chemicals here that drive endocrine disruption. A lot of them are associated also with cancer, thyroid cancers.

Look, thyroid is one of the top diagnoses. Low thyroid is one of the top diagnoses in the US. It's one of the most commonly prescribed medications. I think it makes the top five almost every year for the past 10 years. And if you, if you understand why, you can, you can make yourself a non-statistic in that regard.

This is, uh, if you want to take a screenshot of this, this is just a kind of a general overview of endocrine disruption jamming the thyroid mechanism. So you've got phthalates, plastics, BPA. The mechanism is it causes hyperactivity of iodine transporters and it alters TSH receptor signaling. So it alters how your brain communicates to your thyroid gland. Glyphosate acts as a chelating agent, binding to and removing essential manganese, which is required, another nutrient required for thyroid function. Soy isoflavones and nitrates, they directly block thyroid peroxidase enzyme, preventing hormone synthesis. You know, how many of you are doing the soy burgers and the soy this and, you know, the whole movement with all that garbage soy being pumped into people's bodies and kids? It's no wonder we're so sick.

And then PFAS and, and triclosan. Triclosan is that stuff in soap, right? It's the stuff in all that, those hand sanitizers that, you know, hospitals have at every entry, right? They're just rubbing chemicals all over their body and calling that washing your hands. You need water to wash your hands. But these forever chemicals, right, waterproof masks and hand sanitizers, they absorb through your skin, through your lungs. They disrupt the entire melanocortin hypothalamic pituitary axis and drive tremendous amount of endocrine dysfunction.

So this, all this stuff is environmental. It can be found in food and water. It can be found in your personal care products. So you should do an inventory of the things you're using and the things you're doing so that you can make adjustments. Use natural products. Get the, get the chemicals out of your life and save your thyroid.

Now, in addition, it's important to know the, what we call the halide hijack, right? Halides, chlorine, fluorine, and bromine all compete with iodine. So iodine, remember we said before that your thyroid hormone, which is T4, and that converts to T3, that the four and the three were atoms of iodine. Well, if you're being overexposed to chlorine, fluorine, or bromine, these three halides can remove iodine and drive down thyroid hormone function. They can interfere with it.

This is why, you know, fluoridated water is a bad idea. Fluoridated toothpaste is a bad idea. It halts iodine uptake. It replaces iodine in your thyroid. It's like instead of your, you know, your iodine, uh, your iodine tires, if you think of your thyroid hormone as a racing car, and the tires are made out of iodine, they should be big, thick, strong tires, right? But now, when, when you kick chlorine or fluorine or bromine in there, it's like putting a spare tire on a Grand Prix car. It just, it's going to blow when you start to turn a corner.

We know chlorine plays a big role. Now, one of the sources of chlorine that a lot of you aren't aware of. There was a study done a couple years ago on this with sucralose or Splenda. Um, it's chlorinated sugar. And aside from that, if you don't filter your water, you're getting chlorine in your drinking water. But chlorine displaces, dislodges iodine.

Um, we know that bromine, as I mentioned earlier, this is the stuff they spray to make things flame retardant, but this is also used in commercial bread. Brominated flours, um, as well. Bromine is used as a pesticide. Many of these are used in different chemical pesticides as well. So, a lot of the things that we spray to kill bugs or to kill weeds are, um, what are called halogenated biocides. Halogens are chlorine, fluorine, bromine, and iodine. So halogens or halides. So these things are used in farming and on your food. And so this is just another reason why you want organic as much as possible. You want to reduce the potential exposure to these things so that you don't become the victim of them.

Okay. So there's your, your chemical inputs. Now I told you, I told you I'd come back and talk a little bit more about dairy. And as promised, I'm going to do that right now before we get into which labs you need to ask your doctor to order, uh, and other considerations.

So why do we look at dairy as a potential problem? There's several reasons why. One, we know that patients with hypothyroid, 70% of them, according to research, are lactose intolerant. Now, lactose is a sugar found in dairy products. And when you don't have the ability to break it down, it's called lactose intolerance or lactose intolerant. Um, then when you eat lactose, it ferments in your GI tract. And when this happens, it creates a lot of gas, a lot of bloating, but it also alters your microbiome. And as I showed you earlier, the gut-thyroid axis is a very important part of how leaky gut develops. And so when you're altering your microbiome through consuming a food that you're intolerant to, this can be part of the problem. That's one of the problems with dairy.

Now, one of the other problems with dairy, um, is, is a protein called casein. Casein is a protein that mimics gluten. So, as I showed you, many studies showing that gluten actually is a major driver of autoimmune thyroid. So, if you've got autoimmune thyroid, you should strongly be considering a gluten and dairy-free diet. If you haven't read my book, No Grain, No Pain, I, I have a 30-day diet in that book. If you follow it and you have autoimmune inflammatory thyroid, you're going to do a lot better just by changing your diet. But this is why dairy has a protein called casein. That protein mimics gluten. If you're gluten sensitive, you're going to be reacting to that protein as well. Um, so that's the main mechanism behind dairy and your thyroid.

Okay, let's look at this again. Let's kind of summarize some things as we've gone down this journey and you've learned about the nutrition and your thyroid and you've learned that, you know, your doctor can no longer dismiss that, uh, your thyroid and, and nutrition don't have anything to do with each other.

Your brain makes TSH, your pituitary gland, this hormone right here, TSH, that requires magnesium, zinc, protein. When TSH talks to your thyroid gland, it stimulates the production or the beginning of the makings of, of thyroid hormone or T4. And that process requires B vitamins, vitamin C. And T4 to produce it requires iodine and zinc. Also, we could put copper there as well. The T4 travels to the liver through circulation and it's converted into its active form, which is T3. And T3 conversion requires selenium, zinc, and iron. And so this is dependent on the health of your liver. If you're on multiple medications, you have to consider whether or not your liver is going to properly be able to make this conversion. If your liver enzymes are elevated or you've been told you have fatty liver disease, this is going to be diminished. So, it's important that you look for the reasons as to why your liver might be malfunctioning as well. You can watch my crash course on the liver and get more insight into that if you'd like to.

That T3 then communicates to your cells. Um, this requires vitamin A and D to get into the cell and, and also to talk to the cell. You require omega fatty acids, especially omega-3. Um, and so that's where omegas become very important. And then once that communication occurs, now your metabolism can start to fly. So there's your, your kind of 10,000 ft simplistic overview.

If you want to see kind of the more nitty-gritty of, of what some of these nutrients do specifically, you can take a screenshot here. Iodine is the core structural building block of T4. The goiters are caused by iodine deficiency. Iodine deficiency can cause fetal brain development and, uh, and birth defects. We know that selenium fuels glutathione, which is an antioxidant that protects thyroid, the thyroid gland. We also know that selenium converts T4 to T3. It activates T3. When selenium is low, patients tend to have elevated antibodies or develop high levels of risk for Hashimoto's. But they also can have something called high reverse T3. Now, this is a lab test we can, we can order and we'll talk about that in a minute.

We know low iron. Iron fuels TPO, the enzyme that synthesizes the thyroid hormone, and that iron deficiency causes exhaustion, anemia, mimicking hypothyroid. But is it mimicking hypothyroid or is there overlap? We know that people with low thyroid are tired. We also know that people with low iron are tired, right? So there's overlap between the two. And one of the reasons there's overlap is because low iron causes low thyroid.

We know that zinc and copper regulate this enzyme TPO that helps mitigate oxidative stress and that hair loss and altered TSH levels and enlarged thyroid can be driven by deficiencies of zinc and copper. So if you've got an enlargement, you should be thinking zinc and copper. You should be thinking iodine, right? If your lab test came back with elevated TPO, you should be thinking selenium and inositol. You see how you use this diagram? It's based on your lab results. You can kind of look at your labs and then correlate what your labs say versus what, um, what nutrients are playing that role.

Magnesium activates energy. ATP regulates hormone receptor sensitivity. So for that thyroid hormone to talk to the cell, there's a receptor there. Magnesium plays a role in that. We know that magnesium deficiency, it trends toward elevated thyroglobulin antibodies and inefficient oxidative phosphorylation or inefficient energy production. We know that vitamin B12 is essential for immune regulation and the prevention of autoimmune thyroid disease. We also know that 46% of autoimmune thyroid patients have vitamin B12 deficiency. So use that diagram in context with your lab results.

And now let's talk about labs and what you can request. So this is a list of the things that I suggest you do if you've been diagnosed with low thyroid and you want to have a comprehensive blueprint as to why. Right? Right? We've talked about a lot of the reasons why tonight, but now we can put this to paper. We can put this to objectivity.

So, obviously, we've talked about TSH and T3 and T4 as being thyroid markers. These should always be measured. Most doctors trend toward only wanting to measure TSH. I see this all the time. You know, they, they say TSH is all you need. T3 and T4 aren't important. But these markers are super important, the T3 and the T4, because TSH tells the thyroid to make T3 and T4. And sometimes TSH can be abnormally skewed because of a vitamin or a mineral deficiency. Um, so we want the greater context.

The other thing that to be aware of when you're doing a TSH test, if you're taking iodine or biotin, they can both, these two vitamins, this vitamin and that mineral can cause artificial elevations in your TSH. I've seen patients where they were on iodine, they did a TSH, their TSH was like 20, their doctors were freaking out because they said, "Oh no, you're the lowest thyroid I've ever seen." In reality, iodine was artificially causing that, that, that flag. So, you have to keep in mind when you go get your thyroid testing done, you should be three to seven days off of iodine and biotin. Just discontinue them for the week or so before you get your blood work done so that you don't have to worry about getting a false elevation in your TSH.

Another test that's very important to measure is reverse T3. Now, reverse T3, understand that T4 is converted into T3 if you have adequate selenium and if you have adequate iron. But if you don't, T4 will make reverse T3 instead. So what we sometimes will see is this reverse T3 will be super high, too high, and it's a surrogate marker for selenium and iron deficiency. So sometimes you can, you can determine the need for these nutrients by analyzing that reverse T3 test.

Iodine loading is another test that you should request. Now, this is a urine test. These, these here are blood. Iodine loading is urine and it's a 24-hour test and it's a load. So what does that mean? You take, this is actually two urine tests. You do a, what's called a, a first urine catch and then you take 50 milligrams of iodine and then you collect your urine for 24 hours. And what we're looking for on an iodine load is we're looking that you over that 24-hour period, we're looking that you pee out of that 50, you pee out at least 40 milligrams of the 50 that you took. Um, if you don't, if you pee out less than that, then what? It's an indicator that your tissues are not saturated with iodine, that your breast tissue, your endocrine tissues don't have enough iodine. So when you took that 50 milligram dose, your body was like, "Hallelujah, we finally have the iodine we need. We're not going to let it out. We're not going to pee it out over this next 24 hours. We're going to keep it and use it." So this test is, is what's called an outcomes test. It's, it's a lot more accurate than say doing like a serum iodine test.

Now with an iodine load, you can also measure fluoride and bromine. So you can measure the halogens that can interfere with iodine. So sometimes this is an important factor because I see this a lot where people are fluoride toxic and part of the reason they have low thyroid is because their fluoride levels are too high and then we have to deal with that. So an iodine loading test, sometimes referred to in, if we do it more conference test, right? But this should be done if you're trying to assess true thyroid.

Then we have what's called an INA, intracellular nutrient analysis. This test is going to measure all those vitamins and minerals we talked about today. Right? So if you look over here on the nutrients to evaluate, this test is measuring them in a very specific and in a very accurate way. It's one of the most effective ways to measure these nutrients. So you get a lot of data out of this test.

Then we have thyroid antibody testing. And so this is that those antibodies with people that have autoimmune thyroid or inflammation, this helps to monitor how high your antibody levels are and whether or not as you change your diet, as you supplement, as you eat more selenium, or as you adjust your nutrition, do those antibody levels come down. So these are important to know in the beginning if they're high and then they're important to monitor over time to make sure that the diet and lifestyle changes that you're making are leading to direct reduction of those inflammatory antibodies. A lot of doctors will tell you they'll measure this once in the very beginning and then they'll tell you we don't ever need to measure it again. It won't change. And that's wrong. We see it change all the time. We see it normalize in many patients.

Then there's gluten. So, how do we know whether or not a gluten-free diet is the right move? Well, you test for it. Um, if you're not sure, do a gluten DNA test. Um, very easy to do. It's a cheek swab. And then there's food sensitivity testing. Other foods can also drive autoimmune antibody responses. And these other foods can also be tested. Gluten is not the only food. It's just the most well-tied as it relates to autoimmune thyroid.

Chemical immune responses. Are you being exposed to glyphosate? Are you being exposed to pesticides? Are you being exposed to phthalates and some of the other chemicals that we talked about that disrupt the endocrine function? This can be measured, can be quantified, and if it's there, you can do things about it.

Heavy metal testing. Heavy metal testing best done through urine. Also, just like iodine, it's best done through urine where you take some chelating agents or what are called provocation pills. Um, and you can talk to your doctor about that, but you want to rule out things like mercury and lead and arsenic and cadmium and aluminum, um, exposures. They can impact your thyroid. Those toxic metals can interfere with zinc and selenium and magnesium and calcium and copper. And that's why you want to know because if you have the presence of heavy metals that are disrupting these healthy metals or minerals, your body's going to behave in such a way as, as even if you may not be deficient in these, your body is going to displace these nutrients from those heavy metals and you don't want that.

Mold and yeast overgrowth. These are drivers of autoimmune thyroid problems, um, and also drivers of malnutrition. So these things can also drive B vitamin deficiency and mineral deficiency. Micotoxin testing. If you suspect mold in your environment, it's important to measure micotoxin exposure. These are things that can cause the autoimmune aspect of thyroid disease. So if you have this history in your background, it's something that's important that you want to get looked at.

And then gut bacteria, microbes. Remember I showed you earlier the thyroid-gut connection. The gut bacteria. Do you have adequate lactobacillus and adequate bifidobacterium? These are organisms that play a role in regulating thyroid function. So measuring them to assess objectively what you may be missing for your thyroid to properly function becomes an important part of being comprehensive.

Right? So let's back up for a minute. Your doctor wants to run TSH and they want to say genetically it's your bad thyroid. You're going to be on medicine for the rest of your life. Diet and lifestyle have nothing to do with your thyroid condition. I hope that what I've shown you tonight is evidence that your doctor, if he's told you that, doesn't know what he's talking about. And I've hope I've given you enough knowledge that you can pursue getting a more comprehensive answer and working with a doctor. Um, you know, whether you reach out to us or whether you work with somebody else. I just want you to have the knowledge so that you can take action.

Now let's say you take action. Let me give you kind of a, a pre-warning because this is one of the conversations that very rarely gets discussed. That's why there's a big caution right here. When you change your nutrition, it is very common that your medication may become too strong. What does that look like? And this is what.

So, let's say your selenium is low. Let's say you're gluten sensitive. So, you change your diet. You supplement with selenium. And all of a sudden, you've been taking, you know, a certain dose of thyroid medicine. Now, all of a sudden, you have hot flashes and heart palpitations. You're super irritable. You're developing anxiety. Your hair's falling out more. You, at night, you're laying down and your legs are jumping all over the place. You can't fall asleep. What are these symptoms of? That your medicine might be too strong. Because when you change your diet and you change your nutrition, your thyroid function, well, first of all, your thyroid itself heals. If it's inflamed, it can heal. But secondarily, the function of your thyroid improves. And when that happens, the medicine is now overdosing you. And this is not uncommon.

I've seen this, the fastest I've seen this happen was two days. I had a woman with severe iodine and selenium deficiency. Two days of high dose. She calls me. It's actually, I remember it. It was, is when I used to take calls on my cell phone. I don't do that anymore, but I used to. And she called me in two days and it was a Sunday and she was in the ER and she was like, "My heart feels like it's going to explode out of my chest. I don't know what to do." I said, "It's your thyroid medicine because we've got you on iodine and selenium. So, you need to talk to your doc about getting a reduction in your medication."

So, be aware that this can happen is my point. It's not, I'm not telling you to stop your medicine. I'm not telling you to reduce your medicine. And what I'm telling you is is if you go this journey, you want to be aware that if these things start to happen that you're working with whoever's prescribing your medication, that you're working with them and that they're understanding what you're trying to accomplish and that you get your medication adjusted as quickly as possible if these things are happening. And it's just my experience when doctors reduce the dose by about 10%, that's the sweet spot. Um, I've seen cases where the doctors reduce the medication by 50% and it's often times it's too much. And what happens if you take the medicine down too low? Then you go the other direction. If you take it down too low too quickly, you want to take it down low slowly because you want to give your body time to adjust and to adapt to that change as you're changing your diet and your nutrition and your lifestyle. So just as you talk to your doctor, talk to them about a mild reduction first and if that's successful, go down again and if that's successful, go down again. And this can be, this can be monitored, um, you know, again, if you're, especially if you're doing comprehensive evaluation. These things can be monitored every month and a half or so, real accurately to assess, do you need to go down again? Do you need to go down again? But ultimately, if you're making these changes and you're having these symptoms, the likelihood that it's your diet and lifestyle changing, the healing, your thyroid is healing, your inflammation is going away, your function is improving, it's going to be, um, it's going to be something that you need to look at is that medication. So keep that in mind because what I don't want anybody to do is change their diet and feel worse because their medicine's overdosing them and they think the diet change is creating a problem and it's, they don't even think about that medication piece. So keep that in mind as you navigate your thyroid journey.

Look, thank you for tuning in to Dr. Osborne Zone. I hope this information is helpful for you. Do me a favor. If you like this information, hit the like button below and subscribe if you're not already. And come visit me at Gluten-Free Society. If you come over there, sign up for our free newsletter. We'll send you a ton of information on the thyroid and on nutrition and how to navigate lifestyle and diet changes to overcome autoimmune disease. Thanks so much for tuning in. Make sure you join us as well on Thursday, 12:30 p.m. We'll be doing a live Q&A. That's Central Standard Time on all of your thyroid questions. And if you want to get the notes, if you want to get the slide deck, and you want to get my definitive guide on the thyroid, just chime in below. Comment "thyroid" in the comment section, and we'll send that to you. Have a fantastic evening.