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Take Your Life Back and Stop Hypothyroidism Naturally at the Source |
Finding
the “right” diet for hypothyroidism can be easier said than done. There are
tons of diets that all claim to improve your thyroid health, however, they lack
the science to back up their claims. And this can be dangerous, especially when
many of these diets recommend foods that have been shown to negatively affect
your thyroid.
Below
I have laid out some general but useful tips that you need to consider when
choosing the right diet for hypothyroidism. All of these tips are based on
research that accounts for the nutrients required for your body to not only
produce thyroid hormone but to also to convert it and deliver it successfully
to your cells where it is used.
An
Anti-Inflammatory Diet for Hypothyroidism
The
best diet for hypothyroidism should be very anti-inflammatory by nature. And
this is because inflammation from your diet or any other source, causes stress
to your body and activates your body’s natural stress response.
The
stress hormones involved with this stress response work against your thyroid to
slow you metabolism as means of telling your body to conserve energy so that it
can either overcome or outlast the source of the stress.
But
when the stress becomes a continuous problem such as eating an inflammatory
diet that places your body under daily stress then those stress hormones
continuously slow your thyroid which causes many problems.
Do
Grains Have a Place in a Diet for Hypothyroidism?
There
are many sources of inflammation within your diet but one of the biggest and
most common is from gluten containing grains such as wheat. And yes, all grains
contain some form of gluten and in some amount. Wheat is just the one that gets
the most attention.
Not
only that but starchy grains contain sugar chains made up entirely of glucose.
And glucose alone will have a much great impact on your blood sugar than many
other forms of sugar.
So
it’s quite common for people who eat a heavy grain based diet to have blood
sugar imbalances and oftentimes develop insulin sensitivity, or diabetes.
Anti-Inflammatory
Proteins
Yes,
protein is good for you and it needs to be a big part of any diet for
hypothyroidism. But also keep in mind that not all protein is created equal.
More
than a decade ago, our diet used to be quite different.
We
would make use of the entire animal that we ate instead of merely using a few
different cuts of meat. And that included using the bones and organs as well.
Fast
forward to today and all we eat are a few cuts of muscle meat which tend to be
far less nutritious than other parts of the animal. But more importantly,
muscle meats are higher in amino acids like tryptophan, cysteine, methionine,
and histadine which tend to promote inflammation.
This
is why I always recommend incorporating bone broths and gelatins into your diet
for hypothyroidism in order to get plenty of the anti-inflammatory amino acids
such as glycine.
Aside
from that, the anti-inflammatory proteins have a host of other benefits. They
help regulate fat metabolism. They improve your clotting factors. They have
even been used for more than 100 years to treat diseases such as diabetes and
arthritis.
Saturated
Fats
Another
very important component to any diet for hypothyroidism is saturated fats. The
benefits of having saturated fats in your diet are enormous.
But
you have to break through the invalidated misinformation out there that has led
so many people to wrongfully believe that saturated fats are bad.
For
starters, saturated fats are easily metabolized. They inhibit the release of
histamine which is responsible for much the inflammation within your body. They
also counteract the effects of the inflammatory proteins I mentioned above.
But
possibly most important to your thyroid, they promote availability of thyroid
hormone receptors, allowing your cells to use T3 more efficiently.
Coconut
oil is one of the best saturated fats that you can eat. It’s made up almost
entirely of medium chain fatty acids such as Lauric acid, which are directly
converted into usable energy, instead of being stored away as fat like some
would like you to believe.
Butter
is another great choice of fat in your diet. Butter contains plenty of
nutrients such as vitamin A and vitamin D which are necessary for healthy
hormone production.
A
Hormone Supportive Diet for Hypothyroidism
Another
very important aspect of the best diet for hypothyroidism is that it must
support healthy hormone function. And I can’t emphasize this enough.
There
are many different hormones within your body that all play different roles. But
keep in mind that many of these hormones all interact with each other and many
work to balance each other out.
And
when one hormone becomes out of balance then it can create a cascade of effects
that effectively cause many other hormones to become imbalanced.
Take
your thyroid hormone as a very simple example. Your body requires thyroid
hormone along with vitamin A to convert cholesterol into the cascade of
protective hormones including pregnenolone, progesterone, and DHEA.
But
when you become hypothyroid and lack thyroid hormone then your body can’t
produce enough of these protective hormones which protect your body from a
number of different health issues, including cancer.
And
I’ll also note that when you lack the thyroid hormone to convert cholesterol,
then it should make perfect sense why your cholesterol becomes elevated.
And
using cholesterol lowering medication to drive your cholesterol lower in the
absence of thyroid hormone is not doing you any good. But by following a good
diet for hypothyroidism you can effectively increase your thyroid hormone
production and naturally lower your cholesterol.
Selenium
Selenium
is one of the most important nutrients to your thyroid and the best diet for
hypothyroidism will make sure that you eat plenty of foods that are high in
selenium.
This
nutrient is so important because it’s used readily by your liver to convert
your non-active form of thyroid hormone to the active form that can be used by
your cells. And if you don’t have enough selenium then you quickly become
hypothyroid.
The
most notable foods that are rich in selenium as well as other thyroid
supportive nutrients is seafood such as shrimp, muscles, crab, etc.
Vitamin
A
As
I mentioned above, vitamin A plays a very important role in your hormone
production. And it also plays an important role with your thyroid function.
Too
little vitamin A will suppress your thyroid, making you hypothyroid. But too
much will also do the same when it’s not properly balanced with thyroid
hormone.
So
it’s important to make sure that your diet for hypothyroidism allows you enough
vitamin A to not only promote healthy thyroid function but to also ensure that
your body is capable of producing the necessary protective hormones to keep
your thyroid healthy.
Vitamin
E
Vitamin
E plays a little bit of a different role when it comes to supporting your
thyroid. There are many foods that should be excluded from your hypothyroidism
diet because they tend to directly affect your thyroid function.
One
example of a food that will negatively affect your thyroid and should not be
allowed as part of your diet for hypothyroidism is polyunsaturated fats.
These
fats work to suppress your thyroid and block the use of thyroid hormone by your
cells. And vitamin E is one nutrient that can really help offset the
anti-thyroid effects of polyunsaturated fats.
But
it also does much more than that. It also helps balance the negative effects of
estrogen which also works against your thyroid. It is anti-inflammatory,
prevents the degeneration of organ and muscle tissue, and is a proven factor
for preventing heart disease and miscarriages.
A
good hypothyroid diet doesn’t have to be overly complicated. It just has to
naturally support your body’s needs so that it can produce and utilize its
thyroid hormone effectively and efficiently. And it should go without saying
but it’s a necessary component of any good treatment for hypothyroidism.
The
healthy functioning of your thyroid is essential for life. The healthier your
thyroid, the longer and healthier life you will live. So regardless of whether
or not you are experiencing any major symptoms of hypothyroidism, I cannot
emphasize enough the importance of eating the right diet for hypothyroidism to
not only reverse the various health problems you might have but to also ensure
that you live a happy and healthy life.
Watch
this Video HERE
- Diet Plan
For Hypothyroidism (Low Thyroid Function): Proper Foods For Hypothyroidism
Author Bio:
Tom Brimeyer – The
author of Hypothyroidism Revolution – is a practitioner of functional medicine,
health researcher and author on nutrition, hormones and hypothyroidism.
His personal
mission is to inspire and educate people to take control and achieve true
health by correcting their hypothyroidism and underlying causes of their health
problems instead of being stuck relying on doctors and drugs that merely cover
up their symptoms while their health continues to suffer.
