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Pregnancy and its aftermath can be tough on your thyroid system. The mother’s body goes through tremendous changes during pregnancy, as any mother can attest.  One of my professors in medical school, while he was explaining the great changes in blood tests that occur in pregnancy, said “There are three kinds of people in the world, males, females, and pregnant females.”  Obviously, the entire process of creating and delivery a human being into the world can be both miraculous and stressful on the body. In fact, pregnancy is the

Allergies are an immune response, not to an infection, but to something irritating to your body nonetheless. You can be allergic to just about anything — pollen, animal dander, fungi and mold, dust and microscopic dust mites, even environmental chemicals. You may never figure out what all is causing your allergies. In fact, it could be an overwhelming combination of things.  And you literally can’t shake it off.

Research shows that a disordered immune response is associated with low thyroid function. Autoimmune disorders are common–where the body attacks itself. Allergies and infections

Nutritional deficiencies can play a significant role in thyroid problems.  That’s because certain nutrients are needed both to produce T4, the inactive form of thyroid hormone, and to convert T4 to T3, the active hormone.

Here are some of the best foods for your thyroid.

Seaweed (kelp, dulse, hijiki, nori, arame, wakame, kombu) and shellfish (shrimp, mussels) all contain iodine, a nutrient needed for your thyroid gland to be able to make both T3 and T4. The RDA for iodine is 150 micrograms. (It’s 220 mcg during pregnancy and 290 mcg during breastfeeding.  Whether or not most people

It’s not something most doctors ask about, and many women, perhaps, think, “Well, if I wasn’t so stressed out, or tired, or down, things would be better.” It’s lack of sexual desire we’re talking about. Women may discuss it with their friends, but they often don’t bring it up with their doctor.

But low sex drive, in women and in men, can be a symptom of low thyroid function. An expert in sexual function once said, “People will often say that sex is not very important, until they begin having problems with it.”  Even if decreased sex drive or function is

Sometimes, thyroid support dietary supplements sold online contain thyroid hormones that are not listed on the label.

While some contain glandulars  (powdered bovine thyroid, for instance) and would be expected to contain some T4 and T3, some contain more than would be expected. And some supplements that list only botanicals (herbal) as ingredients contain T4 or T3, which may mean they have been “spiked”, since plants do not contain thyroid hormones. Such products are adulterated and are breaking labeling laws.  The FDA is constantly enforcing those laws and shutting down companies that make adulterated products.

Here are some things you can consider

Do you catch “everything that comes around”?

Most people don’t think of their thyroid gland as part of the immune system, but it plays a crucial role in maintaining the body’s defenses.  Hormones produced by the thyroid help regulate the metabolic rate within each cell and directly influence over 100 different cellular enzymes. Research shows that thyroid hormones affect a long list of different types of immune cells (macrophages, T cells, lymphocytes, natural killer cells) and immune function, including replication, antibody production, and ability to recognize and respond to foreign invaders.

It’s

If you are gluten intolerant, you should check your body temperature to see if it is consistently low, which is an indicator of low metabolism. There is a good chance that your gluten intolerance is linked with low thyroid function, which can cause low body temperature and low metabolism.

Here’s how it works: Gluten intolerance or allergy (celiac disease) and autoimmune thyroid diseases such as Hashimoto’s share a common genetic predisposition. That means the same faulty genes cause both problems. So if you have celiac disease, your risk

Can you guess the number one New Year’s resolution? It’s to lose weight. Also in the top ten: staying fit and healthy and quitting smoking. So whether it is with fresh determination or growing dismay–or both–during this time of reflection, we tend to know our priorities and what we need to do.

The problem is actually doing it. Research shows that only 8 % of people achieve their New Year’s resolutions. The statistics for weight loss are especially disheartening. Even the most optimistic success rate for sustained weight loss

Low metabolism can impact your GI tract.

Every cell in your body relies on metabolism-regulating thyroid hormones to function properly, so it’s no surprise that low thyroid activity–and the resulting low metabolism–can cause gastrointestinal trouble.  A lot of that trouble is “functional.” That is, it has to do with the way the gut functions in real life and is not some structural abnormality that will show up on endoscopy, x-rays or blood tests. These functional problems are likely to involve GI tract motility–the coordinated movement of food from top to bottom. Chronic