5 Ways Stress Can Worsen Thyroid Problems

Emotional stress is what everyone thinks of when "stress" is mentioned but stress comes in many different forms. It can be caused from over-exercising, lack of sleep, a fight with a boyfriend, or consuming too many sweets. The adrenal glands don't differentiate between any of these stressors. Whether it's too much coffee consumption or a final exam, the adrenal glands react the same way - by calling on the adrenal glands to secrete hormones.
Our adrenal glands actually secrete almost 50 hormones but we are most interested in the hormones called adrenaline, DHEA, and cortisol. These hormones work to keep our body's reaction to stress in check by having an anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant effect. These adrenal hormones get to work when there is swelling and inflammation, threat of mental or physical danger, infection, and in response to the presence of an autoimmune condition. But the adrenal glands have their limits. They run out of steam and produce less and less of their hormones as they are called on repeatedly by the body to help deal with chronic problems such as thyroid conditions.
When the adrenals cannot keep up, the effects can be far-reaching. Some symptoms and signs of adrenal fatigue are:
• Allergies
• Asthma
• Anxiety
• Autoimmune disorders
• Chronic fatigue syndrome
• Cravings for salty or sweet foods
• Recurrent coughs, colds, flu
• Fatigue
• Confusion, poor memory
• Hypoglycemia
• Insomnia
• Low sex drive
• Blurry vision
• Headaches
• Reliance on coffee or energy drinks
• Feeling bloated
• Trouble falling or staying asleep
• Dizziness (positional - going from sitting to standing or from lying to sitting )
• Weight gain

Thyroid function is intricately tied to our adrenal health. Part of any thyroid treatment plan should include adrenal gland support for the following 5 reasons:

1. Adrenal fatigue causes the thyroid receptors on cells to lose their sensitivity to thyroid hormones
2. Adrenal fatigue can decrease the conversion of thyroid hormones T4 to T3
3. Adrenal fatigue weakens the immune system barriers in the intestines, lungs and the blood/brain barrier
4. Adrenal fatigue inhibits absorption of thyroid hormone into cells
5. Adrenal fatigue disrupts the interchange between the hypothalamus and pituitary gland with the thyroid gland

What Can You Do to Help Adrenal Fatigue?
Here are some "Do's" that can help you avoid or aid adrenal fatigue. Start by managing your blood sugar levels better by:

• Eat a protein-rich breakfast within one hour of awakening.
• Avoid caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, and energy drinks.
• Keep low-glycemic snacks nearby. We recommend yogurt, nuts, raw vegetables, olives, pickles, and hard-boiled eggs. Eat something every 2-3 hours whether or not you feel hungry.
• Avoid sweets
• Eat a food allergen-free diet

Exercise and the Adrenal Glands
Our adrenal glands need the right type of exercise. It's crucial to lowering high cortisol levels. Sports that require repeated short bursts of energy as in weight lifting burn sugar and actually can stress the adrenals even more.
The type of exercise that burns fat is called aerobic exercise. Examples of aerobic exercise are walking, long slow runs, rowing, and non-competitive cycling. Burning fat with these exercises can decrease cortisol levels.
The adrenal glands' health is vitally important in any thyroid treatment plan. Assessment of the adrenals is part of a functional medicine thyroid evaluation.

By Dr. Frank P Lanzisera

7 All Natural Thyroid Boosters to Help Your Thyroid and Your Weight

Since one of the functions of your thyroid is controlling metabolism, there seems to be a big connection between the increased rate of thyroid symptoms and problems in America and the increase in weight control problems. The following natural thyroid boosters are ideas that have been shown to help boost thyroid function, and hence help increase metabolism and make it easier for you to lose weight as well as maintain a normal weight.

Thyroid Booster #1: Reduce Iodine Blockers in the Diet

Besides eating iodine-rich foods, it is important to reduce your intake of goitrogens (iodine blockers) like peanuts and soy. All raw cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cabbage, turnips, kale, and cauliflower are also goitrogens. Make sure and cook them before eating them in significant amounts.

Soy products are probably the worst goitrogen offenders, first of all because cooking does not destroy the anti-thyroid substances in them. Second of all, studies show they are in 70% or more of all foods on our grocery shelves in the form of soy oil, vegetable oil, texturized vegetable protein, soy flour, soy protein isolate, etc. We have been told for quite a while now that soy is good for us, so you may find it hard to believe that soy can actually promote weight gain by interfering with thyroid function. However, there are many studies to back up this claim, so we highly recommend that you follow this suggestion to avoid all soy products, except small amounts of fermented soy like natural soy sauce, tempeh and miso.

Thyroid Booster #2: Reduce Refined Foods and Vegetable Oils

Refined grains and sugars, as well as being bad for you in many other ways, put too much stress on the thyroid and can interfere with good thyroid function. In addition, vegetable oils have been proven to fatten up animals, but also cause them thyroid and other problems, including cancer. So if you want to have a healthy thyroid, reduce your consumption of all vegetable oils -- this includes canola, corn, and soy. This also means not eating out or eating packaged foods very much, as restaurants and packaged foods often contain some of these oils.

Thyroid Booster #3: Add Natural Sources of Iodine to Your Diet

Some natural sources of iodine that seem to be well used by the body include unrefined sea salts, kelp, bladderwrack and other seaweeds, eggs, butter, and most sea-foods, especially cold-water deep-sea fish. Fish sauce is also a rich source of iodine if properly prepared, and is often used in Thai cuisine. It may also be useful to supply extra iodine in your diet by taking kelp or bladderwrack extracts or another herbal formula that contains seaweeds as well as other herbs that can be helpful for nourishing the thyroid gland.

Thyroid Booster #4: Add Minerals and Vitamins that Support Thyroid Function

Zinc, chromium, selenium and manganese are all minerals that have been shown to support the thyroid. You can add more minerals to your diet in a natural form that will help support your thyroid gland by using a whole food based greens supplement and/or coral calcium which contains trace minerals like zinc and selenium.

One of the most beneficial vitamins for the thyroid gland is vitamin A, although B, C and E vitamins complexes are also important. Those with hypothyroid often have problems converting beta-carotene to vitamin A, so it is important that you get some real vitamin A. Never take synthetic vitamin A, as studies have shown it to be toxic at higher levels.

Many, if not most of the vitamins you find in the stores today are isolated nutrients that come from synthetic sources. This is generally because these vitamins cost less to manufacture than vitamins from living food sources. However, vitamin supplements that are synthetic do not provide all the co-factors necessary for your body to fully utilize that supplement. So, these products may bring much needed nutrients to your body in the short term, but over the long term will likely cause other problems in your body. Although they are difficult to find, it's worth it for your health to seek out only 100 percent whole food supplements and super foods.

Thyroid Booster # 5: Get More Exercise, Especially Rebounding

Exercise is also good for your thyroid -- any kind. A rebounder can be especially helpful, but all exercise will stimulate the thyroid gland secretion and will help increase the sensitivity of your cells to the thyroid hormones. If you are too tired to get much exercise, you might want to think about adding coconut oil to your diet or perhaps some good super foods to help boost your energy levels so that you feel like exercising.

Thyroid Booster #6: Add Virgin Coconut Oil To Your Diet

Coconut oil, because of its metabolism-stimulating properties, seems to be an excellent thyroid system builder. If you have problems with your thyroid, you want to be sure to include coconut oil in your diet. Remember how we told you that animals got fatter when eating vegetable oils? Well, these same farmers then tried giving their animals coconut oil to see if that would fatten them up without the same problems their animals experienced on vegetable oils. Guess what? It made the animals more active and more lean instead! So add coconut oil to your diet today!

Thyroid Booster #7: Stop Using Fluoride in Your Water and Toothpaste

According to Cherie Calboun in "The Coconut Diet", a growing body of evidence suggests that fluoride may interfere with proper functioning of the thyroid. This means that if your water is fluoridated, it may be extremely helpful for you to buy a water filter that filters out fluoride. If you're not sure, check with your water supplier -- about 50 percent of America's tap water is fluoridated today. You also want to avoid fluoride toothpastes, since some of it inevitably will be ingested.

Although none of these suggestions should take the place of your consulting a health care practitioner, many have found that by incorporating them into their lifestyles, their thyroid symptoms got better and it became easier to lose weight.- Karen Pijuan

Home Remedies for Hypothyroidism

Thyroid gland is a small mass of tissue that is present on either side of the trachea or in general a windpipe. It is one of the most important organs of the human body. The entire body systems run on metabolism and metabolism is controlled majorly by the help of thyroid gland.

Hypothyroidism is the condition that results from malfunctioning of the thyroid gland. The thyroid gland produces insufficient quantity of the thyroid hormone called as thyroxin. This situation is also developed from the pituitary deficiency, but it is generally due to some abnormality in thyroid gland by birth (called as congenital/deformity) anomaly.

There are many ways to treat the thyroid gland. One of the best ways is adopting home remedy. Home remedy starts from your kitchen and undoubtedly helps in preventing, controlling and treating the diseased condition. There are many benefits of home remedies and one out of them is the cost.

Home remedies are comparatively cheaper and affordable than other therapies to treat hypothyroidism. Here are some of the home remedies that can be very effective in treating and controlling the thyroid gland. Many of them do not decrease or increase thyroid function but it regulates the gland to produce enough quantity of hormone.

1 Spirulina is considered as good health booster and thyroid regulator. There are many products available in the market containing this wonderful herb.

2 Take black Cohosh that helps in balancing the estrogen levels and can also be useful in controlling thyroid gland function.

3 Mullein covers and protects the cells and reduces the inflammation of the glands including thyroid gland. This is very useful in case of goiter.

4 Agnus castus can support the pituitary gland and can help balancing estrogen that is known to interfere with normal thyroid functions.

5 Siberian Ginseng is very useful for adrenal and thymus glands and therefore also helpful to support thyroid health.

6 Another good home remedy for thyroid gland is to have primrose oil. This is the fatty acid that restores the functions of the thyroid gland.

7 Regular intake of vitamin B complex is extremely helpful in treating thyroid conditions. Taking them also prevent other minor diseases. You should include green leafy vegetables. Vitamin B complex can also be taken as pills. It improves the cellular oxygenation and gives us energy. The group provides immunity and rejuvenates the body.

8 Bladder wrack is rich in natural iodine. This will be very beneficial in preventing and treating various thyroid disorders.

9 Food from the kitchen that contains calcium, zinc, iron, copper, manganese, terbium, and neodymium are very useful minerals and trace elements those are necessary for the good health of thyroid gland.

10 Go for the low calorie food. Cut down on cakes, biscuits, sweets and alcoholic drinks those are relatively high in calories but low in nutrients.

11 Go for the food that is rich in vitamin A like yellow vegetables, eggs, carrots and dark green leafy vegetables that are thyroid boosters.

By Ryan English