Wow, indeed -- i'm doing a happy-dance (figuratively speaking) as i write....
Peter at Hyperlipid just did a blog-post on thyroid, and it fills in some holes in my understanding. THIS is where a clinician runs rings around all the researchers and theoreticians in the world! :-D When you REALLY want to find out what's going on in a body, you learn to get the info you need one way or another -- if you can't get it directly, you find a way around.
I can't begin to summarize all his points -- you'll have to go read his post! ...But i feel like it's a vindication of all i've been writing the last few days.
Of course, a knee-jerk reaction of mine within the first few paragraphs i read, was "how does a cat become hypothyroid? could it be ... malnutrition?"
Friday, July 13, 2012
just take a pill....
[groan] Don't bother.
Malnutrition IS associated with obesity. So the first suggestion that people hear is "take a multivitamin/mineral." Unless your diet is 100% GARBAGE (and some people do have such a diet) it's not going to fix much.
What are the worst imbalances in the common diet? Maybe, lack of pantothenic acid? Hardly (by dictionary definition, it's everywhere). My vote is for TOO MUCH omega-6 fats, TOO MUCH fructose, TOO MUCH insulin-stimulating foods of all kinds, TOO LITTLE protein, TOO LITTLE omega-3s, short- and medium chain fatty acids.... No vitamin in the world is going to balance these problems.
Then, what good is it going to do you to take calcium, if your low K2 just sends it into your circulatory system instead of your bones and teeth, where it'll actually do you some good? What good, all the minerals in minuscule quantities, which compete with each other for absorption? What good vitamin C, when all the sugar in your diet ties up the receptors?
Thanks to SOME researchers, who have determined how nutrients perform in the body (NOT in vitro, which tends to mean about as much as epidemiological studies do), we can approach the subject of supplementation intelligently. Read up on anything you have doubts about, from a reputable source -- people get themselves into trouble supplementing single substances when they don't. Heard the stories about Hashi's patients getting sick on iodine? That's because somebody didn't do their homework, and make sure they were sufficient in selenium too....
I don't think that there's much doubt, nutrients are BEST acquired through whole foods ... UNLESS there are absorption issues. Nature, which formed us, also put our ideal food together -- though not in that order -- and the way nutrients arrive through a pre-agricultural diet require less adaptation by us to assimilate. Less STRESS to our bodies (don't we have enough stress with modern lifestyles?).
But the next time your body doesn't act quite right, it's only reasonable to ask yourself, "could i be deficient in something" rather than "can i get a prescription to fix this."
Malnutrition IS associated with obesity. So the first suggestion that people hear is "take a multivitamin/mineral." Unless your diet is 100% GARBAGE (and some people do have such a diet) it's not going to fix much.
What are the worst imbalances in the common diet? Maybe, lack of pantothenic acid? Hardly (by dictionary definition, it's everywhere). My vote is for TOO MUCH omega-6 fats, TOO MUCH fructose, TOO MUCH insulin-stimulating foods of all kinds, TOO LITTLE protein, TOO LITTLE omega-3s, short- and medium chain fatty acids.... No vitamin in the world is going to balance these problems.
Then, what good is it going to do you to take calcium, if your low K2 just sends it into your circulatory system instead of your bones and teeth, where it'll actually do you some good? What good, all the minerals in minuscule quantities, which compete with each other for absorption? What good vitamin C, when all the sugar in your diet ties up the receptors?
Thanks to SOME researchers, who have determined how nutrients perform in the body (NOT in vitro, which tends to mean about as much as epidemiological studies do), we can approach the subject of supplementation intelligently. Read up on anything you have doubts about, from a reputable source -- people get themselves into trouble supplementing single substances when they don't. Heard the stories about Hashi's patients getting sick on iodine? That's because somebody didn't do their homework, and make sure they were sufficient in selenium too....
I don't think that there's much doubt, nutrients are BEST acquired through whole foods ... UNLESS there are absorption issues. Nature, which formed us, also put our ideal food together -- though not in that order -- and the way nutrients arrive through a pre-agricultural diet require less adaptation by us to assimilate. Less STRESS to our bodies (don't we have enough stress with modern lifestyles?).
But the next time your body doesn't act quite right, it's only reasonable to ask yourself, "could i be deficient in something" rather than "can i get a prescription to fix this."
Thursday, July 12, 2012
MY thyroid on VLC
Quite some time ago, there was a lot of noise in the paleo blogosphere about low-carbohydrate diets causing a drop in thyroid function. I was puzzled by it, as i feel SO much better on LC. Surely if it really DID lower function, i'd be the first to notice it! The high-carb afficionados especially made a big deal about it.
Why do they insist so ardently that their way is the only way? Because they hate eating that way themselves, and they don't want others to benefit from it, what? ...Makes no sense to me.
Upon reading more from a range of sources, it turns out that ANY decent loss of weight makes the thyroid slow down -- LC is just more efficient for fat loss than most others. It's all about energy availability in the diet -- your body is slowing down to protect you from the famine it thinks is coming. From a subjective point of view, i didn't notice feeling worse because it obviously wasn't slowing down MUCH. It may have been statistically significant, but those numbers they use are often arbitrarily chosen. (Read Chris Masterjohn on statistics....)
I suspect that the lack of slowdown in MY body is all about the FIAF and the ghrelin. One thing i DON'T feel on very-low-carb is draggy, dopey and dim -- i have to eat a "normal" amount of carbs to feel that crummy.
So if you're making good progress on LC but are worried about what it might be doing to your thyroid function, monitor yourself for energy levels and symptoms -- but remember that a lot of thyroid symptoms are tied up with nutrient deficiencies ... which may be causing your poor thyroid function in the first place!
Why do they insist so ardently that their way is the only way? Because they hate eating that way themselves, and they don't want others to benefit from it, what? ...Makes no sense to me.
Upon reading more from a range of sources, it turns out that ANY decent loss of weight makes the thyroid slow down -- LC is just more efficient for fat loss than most others. It's all about energy availability in the diet -- your body is slowing down to protect you from the famine it thinks is coming. From a subjective point of view, i didn't notice feeling worse because it obviously wasn't slowing down MUCH. It may have been statistically significant, but those numbers they use are often arbitrarily chosen. (Read Chris Masterjohn on statistics....)
I suspect that the lack of slowdown in MY body is all about the FIAF and the ghrelin. One thing i DON'T feel on very-low-carb is draggy, dopey and dim -- i have to eat a "normal" amount of carbs to feel that crummy.
So if you're making good progress on LC but are worried about what it might be doing to your thyroid function, monitor yourself for energy levels and symptoms -- but remember that a lot of thyroid symptoms are tied up with nutrient deficiencies ... which may be causing your poor thyroid function in the first place!
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
malnutrition causing hypothyroidism?
In THIS body, i think the answer is YES. Other people often have different causes.
I was diagnosed at the age of about six months. At that point, i had been fed artificially for about four months. Back in the 1950s in Kansas, that would have meant cow's milk with added sugar; perhaps i had been started on cereal by that time, too. I know NOW that i am sensitive to pasturized dairy, wheat, other gluten grains, corn, nightshades and molds (think candida): hmmmmm....
What nutrients are crucial to thyroid function? Maybe those minerals which don't get absorbed well when one's intestines are being irritated by the diet, like iron? Maybe things that aren't plentiful in midwestern soil, like iodine? Maybe things in foods that people don't give babies under 6 months, like liver and eggyolks? Again -- hmmmmm....
As a child i always craved protein foods -- MEAT. I think this was my body telling me what i needed to be healthy: amino acids, saturated fat, trace minerals, B-vitamins.
Why do so many women develop hypothyroidism in middle age these days? Is it because they're being so "good" they're starving themselves of the nutrients that they require to function properly? We've been told for a long time that RED MEAT is wicked, you know!
I was diagnosed at the age of about six months. At that point, i had been fed artificially for about four months. Back in the 1950s in Kansas, that would have meant cow's milk with added sugar; perhaps i had been started on cereal by that time, too. I know NOW that i am sensitive to pasturized dairy, wheat, other gluten grains, corn, nightshades and molds (think candida): hmmmmm....
What nutrients are crucial to thyroid function? Maybe those minerals which don't get absorbed well when one's intestines are being irritated by the diet, like iron? Maybe things that aren't plentiful in midwestern soil, like iodine? Maybe things in foods that people don't give babies under 6 months, like liver and eggyolks? Again -- hmmmmm....
As a child i always craved protein foods -- MEAT. I think this was my body telling me what i needed to be healthy: amino acids, saturated fat, trace minerals, B-vitamins.
Why do so many women develop hypothyroidism in middle age these days? Is it because they're being so "good" they're starving themselves of the nutrients that they require to function properly? We've been told for a long time that RED MEAT is wicked, you know!
Monday, July 9, 2012
thyroids and diets
The Wheat Belly blog is talking about thyroid issues as associated with weight loss today. I tried to reply to one of the ladies' comments, but the spam-inhibiting system over there is really funky and i gave up. However, this subject is important to me, so i can't resist saying a word or two.
Not being in the medical community myself, i'm not hindered by my ortho-education. Whatever they ARE taught is obviously all about drugs or surgery. High TSH with low T, and they medicate; high T and they 'ectomize. Like a lot of allopathic medicine, i think it's lousy and half-assed.
When the "shortage" of natural thyroid happened a couple of years ago, i got mad (with "upset" as an intermediate step). There were no fewer pigs, sheep and cattle than there were before, so it's a "feckin lie" that there was a shortage -- Armour simply wanted to change their formulation, and they were hand-in-glove with the bloody idiots who think that Synthroid is just the same as natural. It's distinctly possible that some entity bought up supplies and dumped them out of the country or in the ocean, too. Some people sneer every time they hear a hint of what they consider conspiracy theory, but there wouldn't be a name for it if it didn't exist. I FIRMLY believe in conspiracies when it comes to parting fools and their money.
At that point, i did what any good internet-lover would do -- MY HOMEWORK. Since then, i've learned a hell of a lot. The way MY situation turned out, i take a generous handful of supplements and no prescription drugs -- though there are those who really ought to take both.
One of the most telling things i learned comes from my much-referenced source, "Strong Medicine." Gettaloada THIS:
Short answer: overweight people have messed-up metabolisms. Something "different" is happening within the obese population Donaldson describes -- their bodies are not behaving normally in the presence of a metabolic stimulant. Something in the thyroid-hormone domain has gone haywire, just as their energy-mobilizing/utilizing domain is also awry. Thinking this through simplistically: either the patient is getting T4 only and it's not getting converted to active T3, or there is so much rT3 in the system it's blocking the receptors of T3 so the latter is not getting utilized. Then there are the adrenal complications which are only now gaining a degree of credence....
This is where the nutritional tweaker gets to be creative. What nutrients are needed to make T4? T3? What competes with those? What inhibiting factors hinder creation, conversion and usage? What can we do to optimize every step of the way?
This is also where being a passive patient, popping pills instead of making lifestyle changes, will never make you feel your best. If you're not getting enough sleep, you can take all the Synthroid your sources will allow and you'll be wasting it all down the rT3 slippy-slope. It's like the diabetic woman who thought she could eat danish and take her insulin and everything would be all right -- no!
NO! One has to make efforts to eat an appropriate diet, get appropriate exercise, and take appropriate supplements for anything one may not absorb, convert or synthesize adequately. The hypothyroid body has distinct limitations on what it can absorb, convert and synthesize -- that's why i take so damn MANY supplements, why i take some together, some on an empty stomach, etc. You have to do your own researching and testing. Nobody else has your exact physiological situation. Hop to it.
_____
* Donaldson says a lot more about the subject, and i encourage readers to look at it themselves here.
Not being in the medical community myself, i'm not hindered by my ortho-education. Whatever they ARE taught is obviously all about drugs or surgery. High TSH with low T, and they medicate; high T and they 'ectomize. Like a lot of allopathic medicine, i think it's lousy and half-assed.
When the "shortage" of natural thyroid happened a couple of years ago, i got mad (with "upset" as an intermediate step). There were no fewer pigs, sheep and cattle than there were before, so it's a "feckin lie" that there was a shortage -- Armour simply wanted to change their formulation, and they were hand-in-glove with the bloody idiots who think that Synthroid is just the same as natural. It's distinctly possible that some entity bought up supplies and dumped them out of the country or in the ocean, too. Some people sneer every time they hear a hint of what they consider conspiracy theory, but there wouldn't be a name for it if it didn't exist. I FIRMLY believe in conspiracies when it comes to parting fools and their money.
At that point, i did what any good internet-lover would do -- MY HOMEWORK. Since then, i've learned a hell of a lot. The way MY situation turned out, i take a generous handful of supplements and no prescription drugs -- though there are those who really ought to take both.
One of the most telling things i learned comes from my much-referenced source, "Strong Medicine." Gettaloada THIS:
Didn't work in simple obesity? This was very interesting to me, on account o' because, "logic" dictates that increasing metabolism burns more calories, and increasing thyroid increases metabolism so WHY DOES EXTRA THYROID HORMONE NOT CAUSE WEIGHT LOSS across the board?"At times thyroid extract can increase the cooking flame in the body, just as new sparkplugs may increase the efficiency of an automobile engine. It used to be thought that feeding it in small quantities might help to burn off excess body weight. With the exception of about four per cent, that happened regularly to people with the disease called exophthalmic goiter. They would usually melt away under the load of too much thyroid hormone in the blood. But it didn't work in simple obesity. Because so many thousands of fat people still uselessly take thyroid extract to lose weight, the subject needs to be more generally understood."*
Short answer: overweight people have messed-up metabolisms. Something "different" is happening within the obese population Donaldson describes -- their bodies are not behaving normally in the presence of a metabolic stimulant. Something in the thyroid-hormone domain has gone haywire, just as their energy-mobilizing/utilizing domain is also awry. Thinking this through simplistically: either the patient is getting T4 only and it's not getting converted to active T3, or there is so much rT3 in the system it's blocking the receptors of T3 so the latter is not getting utilized. Then there are the adrenal complications which are only now gaining a degree of credence....
This is where the nutritional tweaker gets to be creative. What nutrients are needed to make T4? T3? What competes with those? What inhibiting factors hinder creation, conversion and usage? What can we do to optimize every step of the way?
This is also where being a passive patient, popping pills instead of making lifestyle changes, will never make you feel your best. If you're not getting enough sleep, you can take all the Synthroid your sources will allow and you'll be wasting it all down the rT3 slippy-slope. It's like the diabetic woman who thought she could eat danish and take her insulin and everything would be all right -- no!
NO! One has to make efforts to eat an appropriate diet, get appropriate exercise, and take appropriate supplements for anything one may not absorb, convert or synthesize adequately. The hypothyroid body has distinct limitations on what it can absorb, convert and synthesize -- that's why i take so damn MANY supplements, why i take some together, some on an empty stomach, etc. You have to do your own researching and testing. Nobody else has your exact physiological situation. Hop to it.
_____
* Donaldson says a lot more about the subject, and i encourage readers to look at it themselves here.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
too tired to think -- so i'm blogging! ;-)
Yes, i'm being facetious.... I hope that i DO think adequately before i write, most of the time.
I just wanted to drop a line about the diets of dogs. While out driving today, getting breakfast then shopping to restock the meat drawer, we drove past the place where i customarily buy Spenser's food and treats. Something made me think about a friend who has mentioned that her dog has diabetes.
DIABETES IN DOGS??? This is just plain outrageous. Of all the "diseases of civilization," doggie diabetes is just something that generally leaves me with my mouth hanging open, speechless.
Read the labels of mainstream, even high-end dogfood "products" and you'll see how it could happen. An awful lot of the chows read like the labels of breakfast cereal. One otherwise-acceptable treat had sugar as an ingredient. What kind of idiot manufacturer thinks that sugar is a reasonable additive to DOG TREATS?
A few years ago when i ditched grains (for the most part) myself, i decided that it was even more absurd for Spense to eat them as it is for me. I looked into a raw diet (which i personally believe is the optimal one), but decided that it needed to be easier for others to feed him when i'm not around, and therefore compromised on a kibble which contains some vegetables but not grains. I went to Taste of the Wild, and it has definitely been beneficial for him -- no more problems with his anal glands, cleaner teeth, less itchiness, lower body fat ... and he likes it very well. I'm pleased. Finding the ideal treat is more difficult, as availability comes and goes when i find one i really approve. I should probably just buy meat on sale and dehydrate it for him.
Really -- if you have a pet, DO think about what's in the stuff you feed him/her! Grain products are not an evolutionarily-appropriate diet for dogs or cats. And as for vegetarian diets for obligate carnivores...! [groan]
I just wanted to drop a line about the diets of dogs. While out driving today, getting breakfast then shopping to restock the meat drawer, we drove past the place where i customarily buy Spenser's food and treats. Something made me think about a friend who has mentioned that her dog has diabetes.
DIABETES IN DOGS??? This is just plain outrageous. Of all the "diseases of civilization," doggie diabetes is just something that generally leaves me with my mouth hanging open, speechless.
Read the labels of mainstream, even high-end dogfood "products" and you'll see how it could happen. An awful lot of the chows read like the labels of breakfast cereal. One otherwise-acceptable treat had sugar as an ingredient. What kind of idiot manufacturer thinks that sugar is a reasonable additive to DOG TREATS?
A few years ago when i ditched grains (for the most part) myself, i decided that it was even more absurd for Spense to eat them as it is for me. I looked into a raw diet (which i personally believe is the optimal one), but decided that it needed to be easier for others to feed him when i'm not around, and therefore compromised on a kibble which contains some vegetables but not grains. I went to Taste of the Wild, and it has definitely been beneficial for him -- no more problems with his anal glands, cleaner teeth, less itchiness, lower body fat ... and he likes it very well. I'm pleased. Finding the ideal treat is more difficult, as availability comes and goes when i find one i really approve. I should probably just buy meat on sale and dehydrate it for him.
Really -- if you have a pet, DO think about what's in the stuff you feed him/her! Grain products are not an evolutionarily-appropriate diet for dogs or cats. And as for vegetarian diets for obligate carnivores...! [groan]
made it!
...WHEW....
The most punishing aspect of my return home from San Francisco may just be the climatic change! Although we missed the 107-degree high, when we landed it was around 80 and it had been raining -- STEAMY! The flight went well, especially since my husband had been bumped up to first class and gave the seat to me! Bless him and splash him!!!
The house was still standing and the dog was still fine! As i predicted, our dog-sitter reported that Spense had an anxiety-filled Fourth, but recovered by the next day, so all's well that ends well.
Tomorrow (TODAY!) it's back to being perfect. Gotta do some meat-shopping! :-D
The most punishing aspect of my return home from San Francisco may just be the climatic change! Although we missed the 107-degree high, when we landed it was around 80 and it had been raining -- STEAMY! The flight went well, especially since my husband had been bumped up to first class and gave the seat to me! Bless him and splash him!!!
The house was still standing and the dog was still fine! As i predicted, our dog-sitter reported that Spense had an anxiety-filled Fourth, but recovered by the next day, so all's well that ends well.
Tomorrow (TODAY!) it's back to being perfect. Gotta do some meat-shopping! :-D
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