Thyroid, the gas pedal hormone
The Engine Without a Go Pedal: Understanding Thyroid Dysfunction
Imagine you're all packed for that dream holiday. The car's loaded with luggage, the fuel tank's full, every family member's buckled in, and the driveway's clear. You've planned endless fun activities, the anticipation is palpable – but then you press the accelerator, and nothing. Your holiday is suddenly shelved.
This frustrating scenario is a powerful analogy for thyroid dysfunction. It's an incredibly common health issue, yet, remarkably, it's often poorly understood by almost everyone. While the Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) test is widely used and generally accurate, there's often an over-reliance on it without sufficient context. Conversely, many sufferers obsess over fluctuating T4 and T3 hormones, feeling unheard if their healthcare provider doesn't request these levels every time.
Just like every other system in the body, the thyroid is complex. And crucially, nothing in our normal physiology works in isolation. Unfortunately for us, since the thyroid is effectively our body's 'gas pedal' hormone, any calibration issue within the gland will translate into symptoms that are genuinely hard to ignore.
We've likely heard of selenium and tyrosine in the context of thyroid health, and they are undoubtedly important. However, the major component of thyroid hormone is actually iodine, which often receives surprisingly little attention. The prevailing belief is that iodine deficiency is rare, almost eradicated in developed countries – that is, until you actually test for it. The '4' and '3' in T4 and T3 denote the number of iodine molecules attached to the thyroid hormone, so its importance truly cannot be overstated.
If you're a woman who's been pregnant, you should take serious notice of this. Babies can only grow their brains with adequate iodine, as it's involved in the most rudimentary neural signaling. If you hadn't paid extra attention to this nutrient during pregnancy, your baby would have drained your stores for their iodine supply. Is anyone surprised now that thyroid issues are more common in women, especially postpartum?
Then there's a whole library of knowledge regarding the different deiodinases found in the thyroid, liver, brain, reproductive organs and muscles. Some doctors might recall learning about these when studying 'sick euthyroid syndrome'. But it doesn't stop there: an issue with deiodinase means a problem with cleaving the iodine molecule from the original T4 to convert it into T3. This can lead to the body producing much more 'reverse T3', which cells simply can't utilise in the same way they do T3. A truly shrewd thinker, however, will always ask "WHY?" after addressing the "WHAT?" and the "HOW?". This is where the detective work begins, becoming highly individual and often quite complicated – a delightful challenge for a discerning physician to unravel.
The overarching concept, however, remains consistent: toxins, toxins, and more toxins. These could be environmental pollutants, natural moulds, chronic stress, pharmaceutical compounds, blue light exposure disrupting our circadian rhythm, the invisible EMF we constantly bathe in, foods we once thought harmless, or an over- or under-fed metabolism, to name just a few.
That is, of course, assuming autoimmunity isn't already in play.