THYROID IS A SYMPTOM
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The focus on thyroid is a perfect example of understanding health issues through the medical paradigm:
Narrow focus on one symptom and then treated from the outside by thyroid hormones.
The medical focus on body parts misses root causes from outside the body: lack of nutrients and invading toxins are the main examples I present here.
The alternative holistic paradigm looks at these root causes in the entire system of lifestyle of the person in their environment of stressors to find resources for the body to heal itself.
Let’s look at how the medical paradigm, even in it’s “natural” version, misunderstands thyroid and health problems by taking it out of the context of the system of the body in its environment.
FUNCTION
The function of the thyroid gland is said to produce hormones that regulate metabolism or production of energy.
The thyroid gland also seems to have a secondary mode of emergency response or back up to support other failing functions like detoxification. Dr Henry Bieler said that the thyroid gland, especially in its hyperactive state, is used to detoxify through the skin as a third line of defense when the liver and digestion cannot do enough. Bieler understood thyroid as not an isolated issue but as part of a system working with other organs to address a root cause of toxicity. I will address that scenario in another article Part II on thyroid.
MEASUREMENT
The traditional medical system measures thyroid hormone levels in body fluids to determine if thyroid is low or high.
Alternative medical thyroid therapy is to measure body temperature as a more comprehensive way to measure metabolic rate. This perspective understands that measuring hormone levels does not capture utilization of hormones in the tissues. The hormone T4 that is produced by the thyroid gland has to be converted to the usable form of T3 in the liver, and then received at cell membrane receptor sites. There is more to it than that, but these are just two examples of the process of utilization of hormones by a larger system. So T4 and T3 levels can be normal in lab samples but still not be effective.
The difference between these perspectives is that the traditional medical system has a simple input-output conception of a system, whereas the alternative medical paradigm has a process conception of systems whereby they examine how the parts work together as a process or system
The traditional medical paradigm systematically takes things out of context of processes of utilization of the individual elements as in the examples of calcium and iron. A lack of iron in red blood cells does not mean a lack of iron in the diet as they assume: it means a lack of utilization of iron due a lack of cofactors like copper (in the form of measurable ferroxidase, for example), magnesium and vitamin A that are necessary to utilize iron. Unbounded iron deposits in the body to oxidize and create inflammation and feed infections according to Morley Robbins. Then taking iron supplements makes things worse.
Calcium is another example: calcium utilized due to nutritional deficiencies of cofactors like magnesium does not get in the bones and thus creates osteoporosis. Unbounded calcium deposits to create symptoms like spinal stenosis and joint pain. Calcium deposits can also give you a heart attack according to a cardiologist Dr. Thomas E Levy..
Many women think they should take calcium and iron routinely but this way of thinking is wrong because it looks at parts like one nutrient or toxin at a time isolated from the other parts as a system. Both minerals are dysregulated, both excessive and deficient at the same time. Both states lower the production of energy and metabolic rate that is a root cause of low thyroid as a symptom.
I give these examples of minerals because they are easier to understand than thyroid and helps my explanation about thyroid.
DIAGNOSIS AND INTERPRETATION
There are 3 thyroid diagnoses: hypo, hyper, and Hashimoto's. I address hypo and hashi's primarily here. Hashi’s is not that different and the same treatments apply, even though people with Hashi’s have been told otherwise with false information.
Here I am concerned with diagnosis of the causes of thyroid disorders. Diagnosis depends on interpretation of data, especially enough data points to form an understanding of how the pictures of the puzzle fit together. Here is where a third perspective comes in, a holistic in the sense of systems theory.
From a systems perspective the question is are low thyroid levels the cause of a low metabolism or just reflect a low metabolism? This question is rarely asked.
The fact is that hormones like thyroid hormones are just messengers to help coordinate functions and do not produce energy. The thyroid gland is a gas pedal and not the gas tank. The gas tank is digestion of food, breath, and sunlight.
To conceive of thyroid as a regulator of metabolism in a one way fashion is extremely simplistic. The thyroid gland is commanded by the pituitary, which is commanded by the hypothalamus, which is commanded by other parts of the brain. The brain is reacting to stresses of many kinds with many different levels of responses. It is best to understand hormones at the level the brain. It is important to understand stressors as the root causes, of which there are 6: nutritional deficiency, toxicity, infection, emotions, physical misalignment from teeth to toes, and a stressed brain, or the brain’s reactions to these other stresses.
So the thyroid is mostly a symptom of low metabolism, not its cause. This is acknowledged by medical doctors who observe that thyroid levels may be lower with patients in the hospital inflicted with some other ailment like injuries that makes their body weaker. I suspect the role of “reverse T3” is part of this functional down-regulation. This possibility is not considered often enough by the natural medical thyroid community because they are still obsessed with manipulating symptoms and tampering with a system they do not understand: getting thyroid functioning up rather than deeply understanding the constraint to doing so, rather than just giving them lip service.
I draw upon the bigger presented by thyroid expert Dr David Brownstein who focuses toxicity and nutrition as root causes of “thyroid problems.”
TOXICITY AS ROOT CAUSE
Dr. Brownstein and others have show that toxins from the halides class of chemicals can disrupt thyroid function: fluoride, chlorine, and bromides. That is because iodine is also a halide with a similar molecular bonding that these other elements can mimik to replace iodine on thyroid hormones T4 and T3 wherein the T is the amino acid tyrosine and the 4 and 3 refer to the number of iodine atoms attached to it.
Lab tests may not distinguish these fake thyroid hormones that will not function correctly.
Toxic halide exposure is ubiquitous in water containing fluoride and chlorine. Bromides are in fire retardants on furniture and added to breads.
If toxicity has accumulated to disrupt thyroid production it has already overwhelmed organs of detoxification like the liver and immune system. Toxicity problems are systemic problems. You should stop just focusing on doing something for your thyroid. The same toxic halide that damage thyroid hormones can also damage the liver and cell membranes to receive thyroid hormone. If that is the case, then damage to other functions is certainly occurring as well.
If the liver cannot keep up with removing chlorine, fluoride, and bromides, then it is not keeping with up the many other toxic exposures. The key idea is total toxic load or body burden. Any way you can reduce toxic exposures and detoxify will free your body to have more energy to remove toxins of all kinds. The total toxic load and body burden is a root cause of what is slowing your metabolism, not just a thyroid problem.
THYROID MEDICATIONS AND TOXIC LOAD
Natural thyroid hormone medications work to the extent that the thyroid system is the weakest link. That is, for example, if your toxic load of fluoride and chlorine from daily exposure to water is your highest toxic load and therefore affects your thyroid hormone production more than other toxins, it could help. That assumes receptor sites can receive hormones and that the hormone itself is the weak link in the thyroid system.
This will help to a level that catches up to the next weak link, whatever it may be, the liver of bowels, or a magnesium deficiency, for examples, since the weakest link determines the strength of the whole system. A nutritional weak link was called “the law of the minimum” in agriculture some 200 years ago: the health of crops is determined by the lowest level of a nutrients, a mineral, in the soil. This is systems way of thinking, not just matching nutrients and supplements to each symptom treated in isolation.
Thyroid medications are likely to work just a little since the next systemic weakness is usually not far behind.
If you have a doctor who will prescribe a natural thyroid hormone to see if it works, then go ahead, it’s cheap and safe. But I have no interest in discussing that here because I am offering something better here and to discuss that is really just to stay stuck in the old paradigm.
In any case, root causes like toxicity and nutritional deficiency still need to be dealt with.
In fact, nutrition is a more effective way to treat low thyroid than thyroid hormone medications, according to Dr. David Brownstein, thyroid expert and author of books on thyroid and iodine.
NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCY AS ROOT CAUSE
The occupation of halides where iodine should be is more likely when iodine is deficient or underutilized due to missing cofactor nutrients. This is an example of how toxicity and nutrition are two sides of one coin: healthy versus toxic chemicals competing to occupy binding sites.
A solution to this is the orthomolecular strategy of taking larger doses of iodine along with all of the cofactor mineral and vitamins of iodine for utilization. Brownstein explains that this works for Hashimoto’s autoimmune conditions, too, even though people are told it does not.
The reasons people get symptoms from taking iodine include not taking the cofactors to assimilate iodine and detoxification reaction.
I will not list the cofactors here because that is not a guide to what you should “take.” You might not be deficient in all the cofactors, and taking them all just in case may do more harm. What is always needed is an exact determination of all nutritional deficiencies and sources of nutrients, starting with food, and quantitative dosing. This requires energetic testing: I use dowsing with a pendulum, which works long distance.
The point is to take iodine for thyroid, since iodine is needed by every cell in your body, explains Dr. Brownstein. A deficiency of iodine is a system-wide problem that impacts metabolism as a whole.
All nutrients should be understood this way. You must know your nutrient deficiencies through a direct test. You cannot deduce nutrient deficiencies through symptoms alone. Two people could have the same symptoms but different deficiencies. Or different symptoms and the same deficiencies.
The issue is metabolism or energy production as a whole. This is about energy production of every cell in your body. Two the main root causes are total nutrient deficiencies and total toxic load combined. You can test for those directly without focusing on symptoms
STOP HORMONAL MADNESS
The obsession with hormones is one reason why people don’t get better from difficult chronic conditions like chronic fatigue, whatever label it is given like lyme infection as one possible root cause of chronic fatigue.
Hormonal glands like the thyroid, adrenals, ovaries, testes, are small and do not do the work but send messages commanded from the brain ultimately. It does not matter what your labs say, it’s still a symptom. “Adrenal fatigue” and “hypothyroid” are not diagnoses. Larger organs that do more work to produce energy are the gut, liver, immune system, and lungs. The best focus is the cell mitochondria where energy is produced. Health is about energy because energy is needed for all functions. The body heals itself when it has the energy it needs.
You do not need to understand all the symptoms and there is nobody who knows how all your symptoms fit together in a unique pattern. There are not enough tests to measure everything and hardly anyone would know how to interpret the results anyway. What you need is to determine which of the 6 root causes you have and in what order to address each: nutrition, toxicity, infection, emotions, a stressed brain, and misalignment of bones and muscles. This list is meant to be all inclusive. Problems are more complex than you think so simplification of focus is necessary to focus on the right things.
You don’t necessarily need a lab test for thyroid. I am not going to recommend labs except maybe a hair test for toxic metals because that is a root cause of slow metabolism and low energy.. Don’t spend thousands of dollars on lab tests only to get a partial description of the problem that does not lead directly to solutions. Lab tests cannot test exactly what you need: what nutrients, from what sources, in what amounts, when, and in combination with what. Energetic testing does that. I repeat: I happen to use a pendulum to get yes or no answer working from lists of questions. It works long distance. Yes, it is like muscle testing in person which I have done and had done to me. Often it does not work because the practitioner is biased from selling supplements or not asking the right questions.
Part II will explore Dr. Bieler’s idea that the thyroid gland has a role as an emergency response or a 3rd line of defense to detoxify through the skin. This helps explain hyperthyroid conditions. I will relate this to explanations for blood pressure.
Narrow focus on one symptom and then treated from the outside by thyroid hormones.
The medical focus on body parts misses root causes from outside the body: lack of nutrients and invading toxins are the main examples I present here.
The alternative holistic paradigm looks at these root causes in the entire system of lifestyle of the person in their environment of stressors to find resources for the body to heal itself.
Let’s look at how the medical paradigm, even in it’s “natural” version, misunderstands thyroid and health problems by taking it out of the context of the system of the body in its environment.
FUNCTION
The function of the thyroid gland is said to produce hormones that regulate metabolism or production of energy.
The thyroid gland also seems to have a secondary mode of emergency response or back up to support other failing functions like detoxification. Dr Henry Bieler said that the thyroid gland, especially in its hyperactive state, is used to detoxify through the skin as a third line of defense when the liver and digestion cannot do enough. Bieler understood thyroid as not an isolated issue but as part of a system working with other organs to address a root cause of toxicity. I will address that scenario in another article Part II on thyroid.
MEASUREMENT
The traditional medical system measures thyroid hormone levels in body fluids to determine if thyroid is low or high.
Alternative medical thyroid therapy is to measure body temperature as a more comprehensive way to measure metabolic rate. This perspective understands that measuring hormone levels does not capture utilization of hormones in the tissues. The hormone T4 that is produced by the thyroid gland has to be converted to the usable form of T3 in the liver, and then received at cell membrane receptor sites. There is more to it than that, but these are just two examples of the process of utilization of hormones by a larger system. So T4 and T3 levels can be normal in lab samples but still not be effective.
The difference between these perspectives is that the traditional medical system has a simple input-output conception of a system, whereas the alternative medical paradigm has a process conception of systems whereby they examine how the parts work together as a process or system
The traditional medical paradigm systematically takes things out of context of processes of utilization of the individual elements as in the examples of calcium and iron. A lack of iron in red blood cells does not mean a lack of iron in the diet as they assume: it means a lack of utilization of iron due a lack of cofactors like copper (in the form of measurable ferroxidase, for example), magnesium and vitamin A that are necessary to utilize iron. Unbounded iron deposits in the body to oxidize and create inflammation and feed infections according to Morley Robbins. Then taking iron supplements makes things worse.
Calcium is another example: calcium utilized due to nutritional deficiencies of cofactors like magnesium does not get in the bones and thus creates osteoporosis. Unbounded calcium deposits to create symptoms like spinal stenosis and joint pain. Calcium deposits can also give you a heart attack according to a cardiologist Dr. Thomas E Levy..
Many women think they should take calcium and iron routinely but this way of thinking is wrong because it looks at parts like one nutrient or toxin at a time isolated from the other parts as a system. Both minerals are dysregulated, both excessive and deficient at the same time. Both states lower the production of energy and metabolic rate that is a root cause of low thyroid as a symptom.
I give these examples of minerals because they are easier to understand than thyroid and helps my explanation about thyroid.
DIAGNOSIS AND INTERPRETATION
There are 3 thyroid diagnoses: hypo, hyper, and Hashimoto's. I address hypo and hashi's primarily here. Hashi’s is not that different and the same treatments apply, even though people with Hashi’s have been told otherwise with false information.
Here I am concerned with diagnosis of the causes of thyroid disorders. Diagnosis depends on interpretation of data, especially enough data points to form an understanding of how the pictures of the puzzle fit together. Here is where a third perspective comes in, a holistic in the sense of systems theory.
From a systems perspective the question is are low thyroid levels the cause of a low metabolism or just reflect a low metabolism? This question is rarely asked.
The fact is that hormones like thyroid hormones are just messengers to help coordinate functions and do not produce energy. The thyroid gland is a gas pedal and not the gas tank. The gas tank is digestion of food, breath, and sunlight.
To conceive of thyroid as a regulator of metabolism in a one way fashion is extremely simplistic. The thyroid gland is commanded by the pituitary, which is commanded by the hypothalamus, which is commanded by other parts of the brain. The brain is reacting to stresses of many kinds with many different levels of responses. It is best to understand hormones at the level the brain. It is important to understand stressors as the root causes, of which there are 6: nutritional deficiency, toxicity, infection, emotions, physical misalignment from teeth to toes, and a stressed brain, or the brain’s reactions to these other stresses.
So the thyroid is mostly a symptom of low metabolism, not its cause. This is acknowledged by medical doctors who observe that thyroid levels may be lower with patients in the hospital inflicted with some other ailment like injuries that makes their body weaker. I suspect the role of “reverse T3” is part of this functional down-regulation. This possibility is not considered often enough by the natural medical thyroid community because they are still obsessed with manipulating symptoms and tampering with a system they do not understand: getting thyroid functioning up rather than deeply understanding the constraint to doing so, rather than just giving them lip service.
I draw upon the bigger presented by thyroid expert Dr David Brownstein who focuses toxicity and nutrition as root causes of “thyroid problems.”
TOXICITY AS ROOT CAUSE
Dr. Brownstein and others have show that toxins from the halides class of chemicals can disrupt thyroid function: fluoride, chlorine, and bromides. That is because iodine is also a halide with a similar molecular bonding that these other elements can mimik to replace iodine on thyroid hormones T4 and T3 wherein the T is the amino acid tyrosine and the 4 and 3 refer to the number of iodine atoms attached to it.
Lab tests may not distinguish these fake thyroid hormones that will not function correctly.
Toxic halide exposure is ubiquitous in water containing fluoride and chlorine. Bromides are in fire retardants on furniture and added to breads.
If toxicity has accumulated to disrupt thyroid production it has already overwhelmed organs of detoxification like the liver and immune system. Toxicity problems are systemic problems. You should stop just focusing on doing something for your thyroid. The same toxic halide that damage thyroid hormones can also damage the liver and cell membranes to receive thyroid hormone. If that is the case, then damage to other functions is certainly occurring as well.
If the liver cannot keep up with removing chlorine, fluoride, and bromides, then it is not keeping with up the many other toxic exposures. The key idea is total toxic load or body burden. Any way you can reduce toxic exposures and detoxify will free your body to have more energy to remove toxins of all kinds. The total toxic load and body burden is a root cause of what is slowing your metabolism, not just a thyroid problem.
THYROID MEDICATIONS AND TOXIC LOAD
Natural thyroid hormone medications work to the extent that the thyroid system is the weakest link. That is, for example, if your toxic load of fluoride and chlorine from daily exposure to water is your highest toxic load and therefore affects your thyroid hormone production more than other toxins, it could help. That assumes receptor sites can receive hormones and that the hormone itself is the weak link in the thyroid system.
This will help to a level that catches up to the next weak link, whatever it may be, the liver of bowels, or a magnesium deficiency, for examples, since the weakest link determines the strength of the whole system. A nutritional weak link was called “the law of the minimum” in agriculture some 200 years ago: the health of crops is determined by the lowest level of a nutrients, a mineral, in the soil. This is systems way of thinking, not just matching nutrients and supplements to each symptom treated in isolation.
Thyroid medications are likely to work just a little since the next systemic weakness is usually not far behind.
If you have a doctor who will prescribe a natural thyroid hormone to see if it works, then go ahead, it’s cheap and safe. But I have no interest in discussing that here because I am offering something better here and to discuss that is really just to stay stuck in the old paradigm.
In any case, root causes like toxicity and nutritional deficiency still need to be dealt with.
In fact, nutrition is a more effective way to treat low thyroid than thyroid hormone medications, according to Dr. David Brownstein, thyroid expert and author of books on thyroid and iodine.
NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCY AS ROOT CAUSE
The occupation of halides where iodine should be is more likely when iodine is deficient or underutilized due to missing cofactor nutrients. This is an example of how toxicity and nutrition are two sides of one coin: healthy versus toxic chemicals competing to occupy binding sites.
A solution to this is the orthomolecular strategy of taking larger doses of iodine along with all of the cofactor mineral and vitamins of iodine for utilization. Brownstein explains that this works for Hashimoto’s autoimmune conditions, too, even though people are told it does not.
The reasons people get symptoms from taking iodine include not taking the cofactors to assimilate iodine and detoxification reaction.
I will not list the cofactors here because that is not a guide to what you should “take.” You might not be deficient in all the cofactors, and taking them all just in case may do more harm. What is always needed is an exact determination of all nutritional deficiencies and sources of nutrients, starting with food, and quantitative dosing. This requires energetic testing: I use dowsing with a pendulum, which works long distance.
The point is to take iodine for thyroid, since iodine is needed by every cell in your body, explains Dr. Brownstein. A deficiency of iodine is a system-wide problem that impacts metabolism as a whole.
All nutrients should be understood this way. You must know your nutrient deficiencies through a direct test. You cannot deduce nutrient deficiencies through symptoms alone. Two people could have the same symptoms but different deficiencies. Or different symptoms and the same deficiencies.
The issue is metabolism or energy production as a whole. This is about energy production of every cell in your body. Two the main root causes are total nutrient deficiencies and total toxic load combined. You can test for those directly without focusing on symptoms
STOP HORMONAL MADNESS
The obsession with hormones is one reason why people don’t get better from difficult chronic conditions like chronic fatigue, whatever label it is given like lyme infection as one possible root cause of chronic fatigue.
Hormonal glands like the thyroid, adrenals, ovaries, testes, are small and do not do the work but send messages commanded from the brain ultimately. It does not matter what your labs say, it’s still a symptom. “Adrenal fatigue” and “hypothyroid” are not diagnoses. Larger organs that do more work to produce energy are the gut, liver, immune system, and lungs. The best focus is the cell mitochondria where energy is produced. Health is about energy because energy is needed for all functions. The body heals itself when it has the energy it needs.
You do not need to understand all the symptoms and there is nobody who knows how all your symptoms fit together in a unique pattern. There are not enough tests to measure everything and hardly anyone would know how to interpret the results anyway. What you need is to determine which of the 6 root causes you have and in what order to address each: nutrition, toxicity, infection, emotions, a stressed brain, and misalignment of bones and muscles. This list is meant to be all inclusive. Problems are more complex than you think so simplification of focus is necessary to focus on the right things.
You don’t necessarily need a lab test for thyroid. I am not going to recommend labs except maybe a hair test for toxic metals because that is a root cause of slow metabolism and low energy.. Don’t spend thousands of dollars on lab tests only to get a partial description of the problem that does not lead directly to solutions. Lab tests cannot test exactly what you need: what nutrients, from what sources, in what amounts, when, and in combination with what. Energetic testing does that. I repeat: I happen to use a pendulum to get yes or no answer working from lists of questions. It works long distance. Yes, it is like muscle testing in person which I have done and had done to me. Often it does not work because the practitioner is biased from selling supplements or not asking the right questions.
Part II will explore Dr. Bieler’s idea that the thyroid gland has a role as an emergency response or a 3rd line of defense to detoxify through the skin. This helps explain hyperthyroid conditions. I will relate this to explanations for blood pressure.
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Free Assessment
See how I support you fully:
Health Coaching Steps
I work over video: Facebook, Zoom, Google, from Michigan, USA
Hess.PaulC@gmail.com
Join me on Facebook where I blog post. FACEBOOK
