5 Things Every Woman Needs to Know About Her Thyroid
Twice a month, Yahoo Health’s Hormone Whisperer Alisa Vitti, HHC, is answering the most common questions about hormones and how they relate to weight, sex, acne, bad moods, low energy, and everything in between. Read her introductory column to learn more about Alisa’s approach to stopping hormonal chaos and getting into hormonal flow.
THE QUESTION: I’ve heard a lot about how a thyroid disorder can cause everything from fatigue to weight gain. But what is the thyroid, to begin with? Why does it impact so many parts of the body and how do I make sure that mine is healthy?
ALISA’S ANSWER: You’re right about one thing: The thyroid rules all! If you’ve ever felt like your weight gain, hair loss, fatigue, and mood issues were part of a bigger issue, maybe you’ve suspected that your thyroid is at the root of the problem. But many women pin blame on their thyroid without truly understanding how it works or why it affects so many seemingly disconnected systems. Perhaps even more shocking is the fact that one in five women have a thyroid disorder, but it remains the most under-diagnosed hormonal condition.
Getting an accurate assessment of your thyroid is critical when you are trying to resolve period, fertility, and low libido issues. That’s why I want all women to understand what the thyroid is, what it does, and how it impacts so many pieces of the hormonal puzzle. And, I want women to be armed with this knowledge before they find themselves in the doctor’s office.
Here are the top five things you need to know about your thyroid and five ways to keep yours in check.
The FLO Science
Your thyroid is the largest gland in your endocrine system and it’s located in the front of your neck. Think of it as your energy powerhouse: By regulating your internal body temperature, it keeps you humming along healthily.
The thyroid is part of a team. It works in tandem with the adrenals to take care of a bunch of bodily processes including your mood, metabolism, sleep, digestion, and sensitivity to the hormonal shifts of your cycle.
If your thyroid is sluggish, the symptoms will show up in your cycle. You may have problems like multiple periods per month, heavy bleeds, anovulatory cycles, or even one or more miscarriages. You may also have unexplained weight gain, exhaustion, puffy eyes, or cold hands and feet.
The nutrients that make the thyroid hormone are iodine and L-Tyrosine. Sixty percent of the iodine you have in your bodies is held in the thyroid gland and tyrosine is an amino acid that is the precursor to the thyroid hormones triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4).
To truly understand where your thyroid health stands, you’ll need your doctor to run the right tests examining TSH levels, T4, T3, and T3 uptake. It’s important to go over these results with your doctor and to understand which specific issue you have before initiating any kind of treatment. Certain protocols, like increasing iodine intake, are good for some thyroid problems, but not all. Hashimoto’s disease, which is an autoimmune condition that causes your immune system to attack your thyroid, can actually worsen with an increased uptake of iodine. So work with your doctor to figure out the best move for your issues.
Related: Is It ‘Normal’ for Stress to Mess With My Period?
The FLO Fix
If your results reveal that you do have an underactive thyroid, you may need to be put on a hormone replacement. But regardless of the need for medication, you’ll need to use food and lifestyle fixes to support your thyroid health so that you don’t continue to experience symptoms of underactive thyroid and require more and more medication to get the same result. Here are some natural ways to support your thyroid:
Sea veggies are a great, concentrated source of iodine. A little goes a long way, so a good choice is nori, which has relatively low iodine and will support your thyroid without risking disruption. You can prepare nori by steaming, frying, or roasting it to produce a moderate release of the helpful iodine content.
Coconut oil is high in saturated fat, lauric acid, and medium-chain fatty acids. Most cooking oils have a negative impact on the thyroid — vegetable polyunsaturated oils, for example, have been linked to many thyroid diseases. Swapping out the other oils you currently use with coconut oil and adding two tablespoons a day to your diet will make a difference in your thyroid function.
A vitamin D has deficiency been associated with thyroid dysfunction, and that’s because this vitamin is a hormonal precursor. If you’re not getting vitamin D exposure from sunshine, then you need to supplement with vitamin D3 tablets. If you’re fair-skinned, staying out in the sun for 30 minutes a day might be enough to ensure the right amount of vitamin D, but if you have darker skin, you may need up to two hours of sunshine a day to get the right amount, Just make sure you get out of the sun before your skin has the chance to burn.
Avoid eating raw cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, kale, collard greens, bok choy, and cabbage. These veggies contain goitrogens, a chemical that suppresses the function of the thyroid gland by disrupting and blocking the enzyme that lets your thyroid use the iodine in your body to make the thyroid hormone. If you have an underactive thyroid or hypothyroidism, then eating raw cruciferous vegetables can suppress the thyroid function. These veggies do have many other nutritional benefits though, so you just need to limit your intake to two times a week and be sure to cook them before eating. Of course, if you have normal thyroid function, there’s no need to avoid these. Otherwise, you can substitute with celery, romaine lettuce, beet leaves, cucumber, and chard.
Manage your stress. Stress throws your cortisol levels off, which is turn impacts your adrenals and therefore your thyroid. Cortisol helps your thyroid work more efficiently, so producing just the right amount is very important for healthy thyroid function. If your cortisol levels are low because of stress-induced adrenal exhaustion, the thyroid won’t be able to regulate your energy and metabolism. Take care to get chronic stress under control and your thyroid will thank you.
Related: Exhausted? Maybe It’s Your Hormones
Need more Hormone Help?
If you’re needing some health upgrading, it’s time you started you looking into what’s going on with your hormones. I’ve designed a 4 day hormone detox and evaluation to help you understand exactly what’s out of whack and how you can start getting back to balance so that your hormones no longer have to suffer. Click here to get your FREE detox and evaluation!
ABOUT ALISA: Alisa Vitti, HHC, is an integrative nutritionist, best-selling author of WomanCode, creator of the WomanCode System, and the founder of FLOLiving.com, a virtual health center that supports women’s hormonal and reproductive health. A graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, Alisa has been featured on The Dr. Oz Show, has a web series on Lifetime, and has been a regular contributor for CBS, Fox, Shape, Women’s Health, MindBodyGreen, and the Huffington Post. She’s also presented at TEDx, Talks@Google, Summit Series Outside, Hay House, WIE Symposium, and SHE Summit.
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