Why he calls the thyroid a puppet
Start here, because it explains why a thyroid goes sluggish while the gland itself looks fine.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185Listen, the thyroid is a puppet. It's got a lot of strings attached, and I'm going to make this easy for everyone to understand the thyroid.
Its two bosses sit in the brain, the hypothalamus and the pituitary. The pituitary sends out TSH and the thyroid answers, so the number your doctor measures comes out of your brain, not your neck.
And this is a woman's problem far more than a man's.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185And when you get trouble with the thyroid, 90% that probably 95 is women, okay?
What is the gland for? Almost everything you notice day to day.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185The thyroid metabolism, body temperature and mood, the thyroid, it's your metabolism. Metabolism won't work properly without your thyroid functioning on all cylinders.
He calls it your furnace, and when the furnace runs low you feel it everywhere at once.
The symptom list he used in the clinic
This is the questionnaire he handed patients before they came in. He wanted the answers before he saw a single result.
- Tired all the time
- Depression or anxiety
- Trouble with PMS, or trouble getting pregnant
- Hands, feet or the tip of your nose cold all the time
- Low sex drive
- Trouble concentrating, or memory loss
- Vocal changes, or always clearing your throat
- Irregular heartbeat
- Swelling around the neck
- Dry skin
- Constipation
- Thinning eyebrows, thinning hair, brittle nails
It reaches nearly every part of the body, which is his point about metabolism.
Why a normal test can still miss it
He is not against blood work. TSH is the measurement he likes best, and he says it was about 95 percent accurate in his clinic. But he never read it alone.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185Always, always have to look at your symptoms, because blood work, even on the best of days, it can throw you off.
When the symptoms stack up and the result comes back in range, this is where he lands.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185Because symptoms are really important for thyroid because if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck. And if you've got those symptoms, your thyroid is not up to snuff.
There is a mechanical reason a test can read fine while you feel awful. Your thyroid makes T4, and T4 has to be converted into T3 before your body can use it.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185Your thyroid won't work properly without the conversion of T3.
You only make about a teaspoon of it in a year. If the conversion is blocked, the gland keeps working and you still run slow. That is where the four strings come in.
String one, cortisol running high
Number one on his list, and the one he sees most in women over 60.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185When cortisol is high for too long, it slows your thyroid to a crawl.
Cortisol was built for a short emergency. High for a few minutes, everything speeds up. High for years, it does the opposite. The signs he names are belly fat, weight gain, hair that is not as good and eyebrows thinning out, while you are told your thyroid is normal.
"High cortisol, low functioning thyroid."
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185String two, estrogen out of balance
This is the string that runs down to the ovaries, and it is why he says women have so much more trouble here than men. Estrogen needs its partner, progesterone, to stay balanced. Cortisol takes the partner away.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185When the cortisol is high, it robs progesterone, it robs it.
Progesterone drops, so estrogen is left sitting high in relation to it. That is what he means by estrogen dominance, and the effect is direct.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185When your estrogen goes up, your thyroid slows down.
His clue for it is fat that settles on the hips and will not shift. Two strings, one chain, which is why he never treats the gland alone. The longer version is here: the thyroid never acts on its own.
String three, the gut and the liver
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185The fourth reason is your gut, leaky gut, leaky thyroid.
The conversion again. About 20 percent of T4 turning into T3 happens in the gut, so a damaged lining takes a fifth of your usable thyroid hormone with it. In the clinic he asked one question to get at it: have you been on antibiotics in the last few years? He ties the same pattern to autoimmune thyroid trouble.
The other 80 percent happens in the liver, and he says people are walking around with a fatty one and do not know it.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185Carbs, sugars, turn to fat in the liver.
A liver gummed up with fat cannot convert T4 to T3 properly, and T3 is the whole point. On how fast that happens: it only takes a month of eating sugar to get fatty liver.
String four, what your thyroid eats
Two lists, both short. What slows it down: soy, bread, pasta, noodles, anything that turns to sugar quickly. His objection to bread is not only gluten, it is the carbohydrate and the bromide used in flour in place of iodine.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185Insulin makes things grow, including your thyroid, and it slows the thyroid down.
Then what it thrives on.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185The thyroid thrives when you increase protein.
And he is specific about which protein, because this is where women usually come up short.
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 1185I'm sorry, your thyroid needs animal protein, the most bioavailable of all proteins.
Fat goes with it, he says, because you need fat to circulate hormones, and low cholesterol works against a thyroid rather than for it. Then the two minerals the gland cannot run without, selenium and iodine. He says the soil has been stripped of iodine, and that eggs, meat and cheese carry both.
Nothing here is a reason to start or stop anything a doctor has prescribed. Talk to your doctor first.
What to do with the list
- Write your symptoms down. He wanted that list before the blood work, not after.
- Ask for TSH. He read it next to the symptoms, never instead of them.
- Deal with the stress load. Cortisol is string one, and it pulls progesterone down with it.
- Protein and fat first at every meal. Eggs, meat and cheese carry the selenium, iodine and B12 he wants.
- Get the sugar out. It puts fat in the liver, and the liver does 80 percent of the conversion.
Common questions
What are the first thyroid symptoms in women over 60?
Tiredness that sleep does not fix, cold hands and feet, thinning hair and eyebrows, brittle nails, dry skin, constipation, low mood and weight that will not move. He asked about all of them before looking at a test.
Can my thyroid be a problem if my test is normal?
He says symptoms come first, because blood work even on the best of days can throw you off. The conversion of T4 to T3 happens in the liver and the gut, not in the gland the test measures.
Why do so many more women have thyroid trouble?
He puts it at 90 to 95 percent women, and the reason is the strings. Cortisol robs progesterone, estrogen is left dominant, and when estrogen goes up the thyroid slows down.
What foods slow the thyroid down?
Soy, bread, pasta and noodles, because they turn to sugar and drive insulin up. He wants protein and fat in their place.
Read next: What Is A Normal TSH For A 60 Year Old Woman? and Thyroid Issues For Older Women: What Slows It Down.
If the symptoms are stacked up
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