Hashimotos

Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (Hashi’s) is the most common type of auto-immune thyroid disease, whereby the immune system starts attacking the thyroid gland. Hashi’s is no fun- symptoms involves anything from fatigue to brain fog, hair falling out, intolerance to cold, weight gain & fertility problems and, as with any auto-immune disease, it is life-long. In Australia, it now affects 12% of the population, mostly women. 12 % is a significant figure; you’d think with this many people affected that we’d have a good understanding of causes and treatments…we don’t. For most patients, it’s simply blamed on their genes, and they are given a script for thyroxine (thyroid hormone), and reminders for a routine blood test to keep a check on levels.

The problem with this approach is that it solves nothing. It may treat some of the symptoms, but it certainly doesn’t look to the root cause of the disease. Indeed, many patients notice no difference whatsoever to their overall health when they start taking thyroxine. Hmmm… Perhaps we could consider another approach.

The big(gest) players in autoimmune thyroid disease

  • Leaky Gut: The gut is king when it comes to autoimmune disease. We’ve got to get this right before the immune system can reset itself. Our modern diet seriously compromises the integrity of the gut lining. Gluten, in particular, is known to weaken the tight junctions in the intestinal wall, allowing food particles, microbes & toxins to escape into the surrounding tissue. The immune system then recognises these as foreign pathogens, triggering an inflammatory response. This inflammation eventually leads to immune cells attacking the body’s own tissues.  

  • Stress. This is another major trigger of inflammation throughout the body. As too many people experience, this day-in, day-out stress creates chronic inflammation in the body, again eventually resulting in autoimmune disease.

The road to healing

There are absolutely steps you can take to begin healing your thyroid, in addition to taking medication. And it all starts, as you’d know by now, in the gut. There are many different autoimmune diet protocols around, most of them with a similar theme. Generally, this involves a Paleo-style diet that eliminates all grains, dairy, sugar & processed foods. This can be further individualised through allergy testing to determine what foods might be triggering an inflammatory response in any individual patient. I usually recommend a good gut-repair powder for a few months, containing such ingredients as zinc, glutamine, mastic gum, guar gum, licorice & turmeric, which will help heal those tight junctions in the gut. Re-inoculating the bowel with good bacteria from specific strains of probiotics is also important here, as is eating prebiotic-rich foods to nourish the immune-modulating bacteria that we want plenty of in our gut. These are predominantly plant-based, and include onion, Jerusalem artichoke, legumes, starch from cooled potato & green banana, beetroot and fermented vegetables.

It goes without saying that any regular stress-reduction technique resonating with you is vital to reduce that inflammatory load. My favourites (and, yes, I do a bit of each) include meditation, sound healing, exercise, yoga, visualisation and time in nature.

 

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