Does a slow thyroid make you look older?
In Dr. Martin's view, yes. Not because the thyroid is a beauty gland, but because of where it sits in the body.
Dr. Martin on how far it reaches:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 839It's very rare that you will see a thyroid that is not working properly, that doesn't have manifestations almost everywhere in your body.
Almost everywhere includes the parts you can see in a mirror. That is the whole argument of this page, and it is why he told women to use their eyes on themselves before they went looking for a number.
Why he says sluggish, not abnormal
He picked his own word for this on purpose.
Dr. Martin on the term he used with patients:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 839I would use the term your thyroid is sluggish.
His reason is the TSH range. He describes the normal band in a lab as running from here to eternity, which is his way of saying it is wide enough to swallow a lot of people who do not feel well. He says he was a big man on symptoms and would not rely on the blood work, because too many people sitting in front of him did not feel right and had been told their thyroid was normal.
Sluggish is the word for that gap. Not broken, not flagged, just not doing the job at the speed it should.
The thyroid as the gas pedal
Dr. Martin on the picture he uses:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 839Because your thyroid, folks, is your gas pedal in your car.
You are in the car and you cannot press the pedal. You are running in neutral, not really advancing. He calls it your body's thermostat as well, which is why cold hands and cold feet turn up on the same list.
Follow the image and the appearance question answers itself. If the pedal is down, everything that needs energy to renew itself gets it. Hair, skin, nails, all of it is the body rebuilding constantly. Run in neutral and rebuilding is the first thing that slows.
Hair
Hair was where he started with women, and this is his most quoted line on it.
Dr. Martin on thinning hair:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 839Now listen, unless you're 90 years old, your hair shouldn't be thinning.
That is a direct shot at the sentence most women get, which is that this is just part of life and part of menopause. He had endocrinologists come to see him who could not sort out their own hormones and had been told their blood work seemed normal.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 839If you're losing it, your thyroid's involved somehow.
He is careful about the word somehow. It may not be the primary thing, he says, but it may be. Then the instruction he leaves you with:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 839And when your hair's not right, think thyroid.
Skin, nails and the rest
Eyebrows are the next thing he tells women to look at, the outer third especially. Then the things that get filed under age without anyone checking: skin that has gone dry, nails that split or break, feeling cold when nobody else is, weight that went on without the food changing, sleep that is not restoring anything.
None of those proves a thyroid problem on its own. His argument is about what happens when you have four or five of them at once and each one gets explained away separately. Dry skin becomes moisturiser. Thinning hair becomes a different shampoo. The weight becomes willpower. Nobody puts the list back together.
That is what he means by observing. Line them all up first, then go and get the blood test, and take the list with you.
What sits underneath
He never stops at the thyroid, because he does not think the thyroid acts alone. Two things sit underneath it on this episode.
The first is hormones in general. For a woman he describes it as a balancing act, a tightrope walk, which is why the thyroid symptoms and the menopause symptoms get so tangled together.
The second is the liver. T4 has to be converted into T3 to do anything, and that conversion happens in the liver and, about 20 per cent of it, in the gut. So a liver full of fat gets in the way of a thyroid working properly. He puts it as emptying the parking lot of your liver so the thyroid can do its job. The fatty liver story is in it only takes a month of eating sugar to get fatty liver, and the thyroid one is in the thyroid never acts on its own.
On nutrition he is short about it. The thyroid loves iodine and it loves selenium, and steak is where he sends you for the selenium.
Common questions
Does hypothyroidism make you look older?
He says yes, because it is very rare to see a thyroid not working without signs showing up almost everywhere in the body, including the visible ones.
Can a thyroid problem cause hair loss?
He says if you are losing your hair, your thyroid is involved somehow. He allows that it may not be the primary cause, but he would not leave it out.
Is thinning hair just part of aging?
He says unless you are 90 years old your hair should not be thinning, and he is directly against the idea that it is simply part of life.
What is a sluggish thyroid?
It is his own term for a thyroid underperforming even when the blood test reads normal, which he says happens because the TSH range is so wide.
Why does he call the thyroid the gas pedal?
It is his image for why the thyroid affects nearly every area of the body. You can be in the car and unable to press the pedal, running in neutral.
Read next: Why Thyroid Problems Land On Women And Not Men and Thyroid Symptoms In Women Over 60.
Look at the list, then the label
Thyroid Support is built around the nutrients he names, iodine and selenium among them. It is not a substitute for a blood test or for your own doctor.
60-day money-back guarantee. If you are already on thyroid medication, talk to the doctor who prescribed it before adding anything.These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Always consult your healthcare practitioner before starting a new supplement, especially if you are pregnant, nursing, taking medication, or have a medical condition.
