Transcription
Hashimoto patients have low levels of four different vitamins. Today, I'm going to explain what those are, how it got that way, why they matter, and what to do about it. So let's get into it.
So Hashimoto's is, of course, an autoimmune thyroid disease. It's the most common organ-specific autoimmune condition, and millions of people have it. Okay, it typically causes things like fatigue, weight gain, joint pain, brain fog. There's a whole long list. But what you might not know is that Hashimoto's patients have been proven to have low levels of four different vitamins. So let's get into what those are, and why it matters, and what I think you've got to do about it.
First thing that we know is that Hashimoto patients have lower vitamin A than people that don't have Hashimoto. How low? Uh, roughly about 6% lower. That may not sound like a big deal. So who cares? What about vitamin A? Well, vitamin A is very, very important to the immune system for the following reasons. Number one, vitamin A is really, really critical for the physical integrity of your barrier systems, and barriers are a big deal when it comes to autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto's. We're talking about your epithelial gut barrier. I'm sure you've heard of leaky gut before. I actually don't really like that term. I prefer the term hyper leaky gut. Anyway, vitamin A is really important for, uh, making sure that GI barrier, the bricks in there, are very tightly together and they're not too leaky. But the same thing also goes for the barriers that you have in your lung, the lung epithelial barrier, uh, your blood sinus barrier, your blood brain barrier. Vitamin A is really important and is usually a big part of the treatment plan for someone that's got an autoimmune problem.
Now, vitamin A is also important for immune system tolerance. I'm going to skip a lot of immunology, but essentially, uh, vitamin A is necessary to help make your immune system more tolerant. And remember, in an autoimmune problem like Hashimoto's, your immune system isn't very tolerant. Uh, case in point, uh, your immune system is not tolerating you. It's actually targeting and attacking your thyroid gland. So vitamin A, really important, and we know that its levels are lower in Hashimoto's patients than non-Hashimoto patients.
All right, vitamin number two that's lower in Hashimoto's is vitamin B2, or riboflavin. How much lower? About 41% lower than someone that doesn't have Hashimoto's. Well, who cares? What is that associated with? Well, a lot of you probably know about B vitamins and you know energy production, and riboflavin is certainly no stranger to that. It's very important for making ATP. However, as it relates to thyroid function, specifically, low B2 levels are associated with high TSH and low T4. And what is that? That is hypothyroidism. So just remember, uh, there's a little bit of a spectrum here, but if the TSH is high and the T4 is low, that is overt hypothyroidism, and B2 is associated with causing that if B2 is too low. Right? So look, if you've got Hashimoto's, which already creates hypothyroidism, and you have low B2, well, you have that extra thing working against you. You kind of got a double whammy. And if you also have low vitamin A, then you've got another thing working against you.
All right, vitamin number three that's low in Hashimoto patients is folic acid. Sometimes people call that B9. Well, here's what we know, which is really interesting to me. Folic acid deficiency or low folic acid is associated with again, high TSH, high thyroid peroxidase antibodies, and high thyroglobulin antibodies. So there's a direct connection between low folic, low folic acid, and the autoimmune process of Hashimoto's. I really have lost count of how many people I see on a daily basis that have folic acid levels that are not good.
Now, just for the purpose of this video, I'm going to explain what I think is a good level. Now, if you look at most folic acid ranges on lab work, on on results, it'll say something like greater than three is normal or greater than five is normal. Well, that may be statistically normal, but I'm telling you that is not a good healthy level, especially not for someone that has an autoimmune condition like Hashimoto's. Uh, research has shown that if your folic acid is around a 10 or 11, by itself, having it a 10 or 11, that's enough to cause problems with mood, uh, depression, anxiety. Why? Because folic acid is necessary to make neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. Folic acid is necessary to recycle homocysteine. Folic acid is necessary for genomic and non-genomic reactions related to making your DNA and your RNA. It's really, really important. So I typically, my threshold is, you definitely got to be higher than 10. And if you're single digits, now I'm wondering about, can you absorb folic acid? Do you have celiac disease or something like it? Maybe you have MTHFR? Who knows? A lot of different things there. But folic acid, super important when it comes to Hashimoto's.
Now, the last vitamin that is lower in Hashimoto's patients, you could probably guess this if you've seen my channel very much, is vitamin D. Hashimoto patients have lower vitamin D than people that don't have Hashimoto's. How much lower? Well, I'm going to point to a really recent study that looked at it like this. They took Hashimoto's patients and non-Hashimoto's controls. Hashimoto's patients, about 58% of them had a vitamin D level less than 20, which is terrible. But check this out. The non-Hashimoto patients, non-Hashimoto group, about 52% of them had vitamin D less than 20. So what gives, right? Well, what gives is, is vitamin D deficiency is very, very common, and it's very, very bad for Hashimoto's patients and autoimmune patients because vitamin D is regulatory. It's anti-inflammatory.
Now, there's another little interesting thing here. About 22% of the Hashimoto patients had levels between 20 to 30, which is still not good. And about 32% of the non-Hashimoto patients had levels of 20 to 30. So again, why do we care about that? Because vitamin D is immune system regulatory. I, I don't know why. I've seen a lot of people come through lately, patients, because I see a lot of obviously autoimmune patients and Hashimoto's patients. Their vitamin D is like 32, and their doctor has said, "Hey, that's good." Well, it's not good. It's not good at all. In fact, I have a lot more information on vitamin D. I'm probably going to have to, uh, to put up. But, you know, a level of 70 or 80 on your vitamin D is not toxic. That's a pretty good level in my opinion. I mean, that's the level that multiple sclerosis patients need to have, right? Which is an autoimmune condition as well. So with vitamin D, uh, you do have to be careful, right?
And this kind of brings me, kind of my, my big point here is I've told you about vitamin A and B2 and folic acid, now vitamin D. And I know a lot of you that have Hashimoto's that are watching this that still aren't feeling good, you're going to want to go run out and start taking these things. Now, I'm telling you, don't do that. Okay? It's more complicated than I've made it sound, right? Uh, this, there's not like a book that I sell where you can learn how to take this stuff or some kind of like online course. You really need to be worked up by someone who has a lot of experience in this, uh, and understands the different tests and the way to order these things. Because just by me saying, "Oh, your B2 is probably low," doesn't mean it is low. It doesn't mean you should go take B2. Just because I say your vitamin D probably is low, doesn't mean it is low. I mean, you've got to get tested correctly. Uh, the dosage depends on the baseline. So I'm not going to tell you how much of these things to take, and I don't want you to treat yourself because of one thing I've learned over the last 20 plus years is there's a lot of people like you, if you're watching this and you have Hashimoto's and don't feel good, uh, you know, you want to feel better, but treating yourself is not the way to go. You don't have the experience, you don't have the training, and frankly, you can mess yourself up. So it's really important that you find someone that understands everything we've talked about today, understands what kind of tests to do to test these, what kind of supplementation you should use, how do you find out if you're absorbing it, uh, what to do if you're not absorbing it. So don't try to treat yourself. It's too complicated. But I hope you found a day helpful, and I'll see you next time. Have a good one.