thyroidTag Archives

The Importance of Vitamin K2

I recently listened to one of those infomercials that promised to solve every health problem under the sun.  I ended up paying quite a bit to buy their reports because they mentioned one “little” thing that has been causing me quite a lot of problems.  They mentioned calcification.  When I got the reports, I looked through them eagerly to find the answer to what causes calcification to occur where it isn’t supposed to be.  The answer was at the back of one of the smaller books I received. Continue reading »

Testing for food sensitivities

In many cases, a malfunctioning thyroid is the result of an autoimmune reaction. In other words, your immune system could be attacking your thyroid. Such a situation could have been set in motion by a leaky gut and the cascade of food allergies and sensitivities that follows. Allergists will check for food allergies by checking IgE reactions. This won’t find sensitivities, though, since they are reactions of IgA, IgG, or IgM. It used to be that the only way to test for these was through elimination diets. They would begin with an extremely limited diet of least likely suspects and gradually add back in new foods to see what caused a reaction. In the last year or two, Cyrex Laboratories came out with blood tests that will check for sensitivity reactions. You can pass that on to your doctor, and he can order the tests for you. If you are allergic and/or sensitive to any foods and they are eliminated, in time you may heal from thyroid issues or any of a number of other autoimmune disorders.

Soy and hormones

If you suspect that you may have hypothyroidism, consider eliminating soy.  Soy is a potent goitrogen.  You can find out more about goitrogens here.  Apparently, several fruits and vegetables are also goitrogens when eaten raw.  There’s a list of them on the link.

I’ve had problems of a different sort before with soy.  In one of my big weight loss efforts, I was on the Medifast diet.  Virtually all of the program foods on Medifast are soy.  Time of month became much heavier, and I was more irregular.  Soy is known to affect hormones.  For one, it has phytoestrogens that mimic the estrogens in the body.  Feeding a baby soy formula is like giving it five birth control pills a day.  To make matters worse, most of the soy in the United States is genetically modified, including the soy used by Medifast.  I thought about doing that diet again this time, but I decided that I did not want to expose myself to that much soy.  There’s some in the NutriSystem foods, but it doesn’t comprise nearly as much of the diet.