Inside: Reasons for deficiency of nutrients that leads to thyroid dysfunction. Supplements that Help with Thyroid Hormone Production and Utilization. Supplements that Help with Reducing Inflammation.
Thyroid hormone production and utilization in our body is a complex phenomenon. There are multiple processes involved in the production of thyroid hormone.
Each of these processes requires specific nutrients so that thyroid hormone production happens smoothly.
And often our diet is not able to provide these nutrients in required quantities and that leads to thyroid dysfunction.
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Reasons for Nutrition Deficiency
The reasons for this deficiency of nutrients can be multiple.
The most common ones being
1. The Modern Diet: We all consume a diet that doesn’t focus on specific nutrients that will help our thyroid. Often times we eat food which hurts our thyroid gland instead of helping it.
Especially our modern-day diets that have a high amount of sugars, processed food, and transfat. And we consume very less amount of vegetables, fruits, and natural foods.
2. Our food is deficient in nutrients. Often I see several people who are eating a healthy diet and think they are getting all these nutrients. But with testing often we determine that they were low on several of these nutrients.
The reason being our soil is getting deficient in these nutrients and so our food is also low on these nutrients. With industrialized agriculture, our soil is being depleted of certain nutrients and there are no processes in place to replenish those nutrients.
3. Individual Needs: Another important factor that we forget is an individual variation for the need for these minerals and vitamins. There are certain individuals whose body utilizes these nutrients more than the others.
We now know that there are so many genetic variations that affect our body’s ability to process minerals and vitamins. So unless we check the needs for these vitamins and minerals we will not know what your body needs are.
So this is the reason that sometimes food alone cant provide us all the nutrients that we need.
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Also with thyroid conditions, we need these nutrients in higher quantities.
And getting that high dosage of these vitamins and minerals daily through food is almost very difficult and that’s the reason we need supplements.
Thyroid disorders often don’t get better because we are not tackling the complete spectrum of the disorder.
What that means is that we are just focusing on getting more thyroid hormone produced and not focused on addressing the root cause of the problem of thyroid dysfunction.
But that’s where I want to focus on different aspects of thyroid dysfunction so people get better results.
- Supplements that help with thyroid hormone production and utilization
- Supplements that help with reducing inflammation
Supplements that Help with Thyroid Hormone Production and Utilization
1.Zinc:
Zinc is an important nutrient that is helpful for so many things in our body. Especially for regulating our immunity. But Zinc is also an important mineral for thyroid hormone production.
Zinc is an essential part of deiodinases enzymes. These enzymes are responsible for the production of thyroid hormone, so by regulating these enzymes zinc affects thyroid hormone production.
Also, ZInc helps in the conversion of T4 hormone to T3. T3 is your active Thyroid hormone, and in several people, this conversion from T4 to T3 is not happening and that leads to low T3 issues.
So very important to get zinc as a supplement.
Now there are various forms of zinc available to its important to know what kind of zinc is best and how much zinc you need. So zinc in itself is poorly absorbed so it is generally added with an amino acid in supplements to improve its absorption.
The most common forms of zinc are : zinc sulfate, zinc citrate, zinc glycinate, zinc picolinate.
Different forms of zinc have variable absorption, research shows that the best absorbed form of zinc is Zinc glycinate followed by picolinate.
The dosage of zinc I generally recommend is 30 g daily. We dont want to go very high on zinc because it can reduce the levels of copper an important mineral in your body.
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2.Selenium:
Selenium is another important mineral that is essential for thyroid health.
Selenium is part of two enzymes Deiodinases and Glutathione peroxidases.
Deiodinases enzymes regulate the thyroid hormone production and also the conversion of T4 to T3 hormone. Glutathione peroxidase enzymes help with reducing free radicals in the thyroid gland.
During thyroid hormone production there are free radicals that are formed, and these free radicals destroy your thyroid gland.
Glutathione peroxidase protects your thyroid gland from this destruction.
Again different forms of selenium exist in supplements, but the best form is selenomethionine. And the typical dosage will be around 200mcq daily.
3. Vitamin D:
Vitamin D is one of those super vitamins which helps with multiple functions in our body. One of its major roles is to help with thyroid health.
Vitamin D regulates inflammation in our body and low Vitamin D has been associated with developing thyroid antibodies.
Also, Vitamin D binds to similar receptors as thyroid hormone and thus affects the working of this hormone.
Several studies have shown an association of thyroid disorder with low Vitamin D.
Another important aspect is that most of the people are deficient in vitamin D.
So it’s very important to get blood work to get your levels checked.
The general dosage for this vitamin is 5000 units daily.
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4.Vitamin B12:
Vitamin B12 another super vitamin that has so many beneficial effects.
In thyroid health vitamin B 12 levels generally run low because thyroid antibodies destroy parietal cells which are responsible for B12 absorption.
Several symptoms that are associated with thyroid disorder can actually be because of Vitamin B12 deficiency. Especially if you have fatigue, depression, anxiety, or chronic pain, or tingling and numbness.
B12 comes in different supplement form and not all are the same.
Most form of B12 in supplements is cyanocobalamin but unfortunately, sometimes it doesn’t work as great.
Because our body utilizes methylated B12 form so its very important to take a supplement which is Methylated B12. And also I feel sublingual form works better, although difficult to find but if you can then recommend that, as it is again better absorbed.
Supplements that Help with Reducing Inflammation
1. Omega 3 Fatty acids:
The hallmark of thyroid disorder especially Hashimoto’s and Grave’s disease is Inflammation.
Its the underlying inflammation which is destroying the thyroid gland and not letting it improve.
And the best way to fight this inflammation is through Omega 3 fatty acids.
Omega 3 fatty acids are very potent in reducing inflammation and protects your thyroid gland.
Especially in thyroid disorders Omega 3 are beneficial for brain fog, chronic pain, fatigue, improving cholesterol issues.
Again important factor to consider is the source of your omega 3 and also the dosage. So the fish oil gets rancid very easily and is heat sensitive so most of the on-shelf fish oil is not doing any benefit. Even Amazon warehouses are not temperature controlled so you need to it from a company which temperature regulates its supplements.
Also, another important thing to consider is where the fish oil is sourced from because the fish oil can be very high in mercury if not sourced properly.
So in terms of fish oil, I always recommend getting from a reputable company. Also, the dosage of omega 3 is between 2-3 gram daily minimum.
2. Curcumin:
Curcumin is the active ingredient in turmeric, the wonder spice.
Curcumin has several benefits as it helps with reducing inflammation, helps with detox, acts as an antioxidant, improves gut health.
Curcumin works to protect and optimize your thyroid function in so many different ways that a whole book could be written. Again make sure you dont get plain turmeric as the active ingredient called curcumin is very less quantity. And the dosage of curcumin is 2-3 gram daily.
Summary
These are the must supplements for thyroid that almost everyone should take. Most of them are well tolerated, but it’s very important to get them for reputable sources as you don’t want fillers that might actually do more harm than good.
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