Hypothyroidism

Lesson 5: Treatment Options

Nutritional and Dietary Supplements

In this section, we will be discussing nutritional and dietary supplements that may help if you are hypothyroid. However, I do want to make several things clear prior to delving into this controversial topic.

First, nutritional and dietary supplements do not contain thyroid hormones in them. They are made from plant and animal sources. Your body needs thyroid hormones to work at its optimum level. Therefore, these supplements can NOT replace deficiencies in your hormone levels. So, you should not take them alone. You will also need some form of medication, be it natural hormone or synthetic.

This leads me to my second point. The thyroid is a complex gland. It is difficult to maintain a thyroid’s stability without the help of a professional. You can choose a physician or a holistic practitioner. However, you should have someone monitoring you who is qualified to do so.

You should let your doctor or holistic practitioner know: which supplements you take, how much of each you take and how often you take them (daily, weekly, etc). In some cases, certain supplements can interact with your thyroid hormones and/or other medications, so it's very important that your health care team know about them.

Finally, I want to remind you that I am NOT a medical professional. I am only presenting information I have uncovered through research. If you have questions on which supplements are right for you, I would urge you to talk with your doctor or another qualified, health care professional.

Of course, your doctor probably has recommended that you take a good multivitamin with essential minerals daily. It is common knowledge that diets in the Western world lack vital vitamins and minerals. Most of us, although struggling with expanding waist lines (which we’ll deal with a bit more in the next lesson), suffer from nutritional deficiencies which do not help our overall health. That includes our thyroids.

Even the best multivitamin out there may not be enough to support optimum thyroid function. It's possible that you may need more of certain vitamins and minerals to help you feel your best.

In this section, we are going to look at some suggestions for supplements that can benefit the hypothyroid.

The first such supplement is Iodine. Think back to our earlier lessons when we discussed what thyroid hormones were made out of. Iodine is a major component of both T3 and T4. It and tyrosine, an essential amino acid, combine to make these building blocks of thyroid health.

One would think then, that it’s a no-brainer for the hypothyroid patient to increase his or her iodine intake, right?

Well, it’s not that easy. Iodine is a vital nutrient for our bodies, this is true. However, it’s not one that we can tolerate too much of. In fact, too much iodine can cause an overproduction of hormones and lead to hyperthyroidism.

Chances are, if you live in the industrialized world, you get enough iodine in salt (That’s why it’s called Iodized!), seafood, and fast foods. Currently, there’s no medical test for detection of iodine deficiency. If you do decide you need more iodine in your diet, it may be better to eat more food with iodine in it as mentioned above than taking an iodine supplement.

It would also seem to make sense that taking tyrosine supplementation may help at this level too. I don’t know for sure if it would work because I haven’t found much research on the matter. You could certainly take the daily allotment of 1mg to ensure that you get enough. (Note: I’d like to see more research done on this myself!)

L-tyrosine is often used in conjunction with other amino acids to treat addictions to drugs and alcohol, but it is not currently known for helping the hypothyroid specifically and is not accepted as a treatment.

In general, it seems that minerals are more beneficial as supplements to increase thyroid function, or keep it at its optimum level. The next mineral on our list is Zinc. Zinc is essential to our immune health. In many ways, a healthy immune system means a healthy thyroid. It also helps the hypothalamus via the TRH act to release the signals which tell the pituitary gland to tell the thyroid to make more hormone.

Selenium is next on our list. Selenium seems to help the thyroid gland regulate thyroid hormone production. It also helps the thyroid produce its hormones more efficiently. Selenium aids in the production of T4 and the T4 to T3 conversion. It seems to work in conjunction with iodine to facilitate this process.

Selenium also assists in toxin removal, which helps not just our thyroid.

Vitamin D has a hand in producing thyroid hormones in the pituitary gland so it can be beneficial to overall thyroid function. Antioxidants, such as A, C and E can be beneficial to the hypothyroid and should not be dismissed, either. Antioxidants help reduce cellular damage and problems inherent in the aging process.

Since age is a factor for developing hypothyroidism and thyroid cells face a reduction in damage and/or deterioration from these antioxidants, there's certainly a case to include them in our supplementation listing, right?

Finally, some specialists, usually of the holistic variety, would recommend that you supplement your diet with the EFAs. EFAs are Essential Fatty Acids. Omega-3 and Omega-6 are the most commonly known EFAs. Most of us get enough of the Omega-6s. They are usually in oils. In fact, we may get too many of them.

The Omega-3s are found in cold water fish, for the most part. If you eat these types of food at least twice a week, then you probably don’t need extra supplementation. If you don’t, you could benefit from fish oil or a pill. (I’d recommend the pill, although less potent, it’s less ‘fishy’ tasting!)

These Essential Fatty Acids help reduce the depression, a common symptom of hypothyroidism, improve cellular and glandular function, and can increase your energy and stamina. That’s all good news for the hypothyroid, right?

Well, before you go out and buy any of these supplements, it may make more sense to look at your eating patterns. Most of these deficiencies, if they exist in your system, could probably be alleviated, or greatly helped, by changing your nutritional habits.

In the next lesson, we will discuss eating right for hypothyroidism, especially if you have to lose weight.

  1  2  3  4  5  6  7