Why the thyroid gives women trouble
The gland is the same in a man and a woman. What is attached to it is not, and that is his entire answer.
Dr. Martin on the connection:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 840Ovaries, direct line, remember the string attached to the thyroid, well, believe you me, the number one issue is estrogen dominance, number one in a woman.
Strings attached is how he describes the thyroid generally, and we have written that part up separately in the thyroid never acts on its own. This page is only about one of those strings, the one that runs to the ovaries, because it is the one a man does not have.
The ovary to thyroid line
Every woman has ovaries, he says, and then adds that it complicates the world. Not because ovaries are a problem, but because they put the thyroid on the end of a hormone system that moves.
A man's thyroid is not wired into a monthly cycle, a pregnancy, or a menopause. Nothing is pulling on it from that direction at all. A woman's is, and it stays wired in long after the cycle stops.
So when a woman turns up with the classic picture, the weight, the hair, the skin, the nails, he does not stop at the gland. He asks what is pulling on it, and the first place he looks is the pair of hormones the ovaries were running.
Estrogen dominance, his number one
Too much estrogen compared to progesterone. That is the definition, and the comparison is the part that matters, because a woman over 60 can have a low estrogen reading and still be sitting in it.
He is emphatic about which way it goes. In all his years of practice, he says, he never saw a case of too much progesterone. Not once. What he saw was the imbalance, over and over, and always in the same direction.
And he separates that from being anti-estrogen, which he clearly is not.
Dr. Martin on estrogen:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 840Estrogen makes you a woman.
It is also a growth hormone, he says, and growth hormones make things grow. That is his explanation for where the weight lands on a woman rather than just how much of it there is, and it is why he says he could often guess the hormone picture from across the room before any test came back.
Why weight gain reads differently in a woman
This is the contrast that makes the whole argument land, and it is the bluntest thing in the episode.
Dr. Martin on 50 pounds:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 840But when a woman puts on 50 pounds, hormones, hormones, direct link, ovaries to the thyroid gland.
And the other half of it, about men: if a man puts on 50 pounds he is a bad eater. Simple, in his words, not complicated. Same weight, two completely different questions, because only one of those bodies has a line running from the ovaries into the thyroid.
He says he saw it thousands of times. A woman who had been small her whole life, a hormonal event, and then 50 pounds that would not move. The advice she got was to eat less and move more, and he calls that out as the wrong answer to the wrong question.
Dr. Martin on the symptom he saw most:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 840But when the thyroid's not working properly, when it's not up to snuff, women again, especially gain weight.
His line about it is that they do not even have to eat the food, they only have to look at it. Said as a joke, meant as a description of what he heard in the office every week.
Nothing here is a reason to start or stop anything a doctor has prescribed. Talk to your doctor first.
Sluggish is not the same as hypothyroid
He puts a fence around his own argument here, and it is worth keeping.
What he talks about on these programs is a sluggish thyroid, and he says plainly that is not necessarily what would be characterised as hypothyroidism, because a diagnosis needs a certain number. He also notes the other direction exists. Graves and hyperthyroid run the body at 200 miles an hour and take weight off rather than putting it on.
So nothing here is a diagnosis, and a slow thyroid picture is not the same thing as a thyroid diagnosis. It does mean the question is worth asking properly, with a full panel rather than one number.
The three points where it gets pulled on
The ovary to thyroid line does not pull evenly across a life. He names three moments where it pulls hard.
- The first period. He describes girls arriving with heavy bleeding, bad PMS and often anemia, and says that is hormones, not bad luck.
- Having a baby. Some women sail through it. For others it is where the trouble starts.
- Menopause. His picture is an aeroplane. Some women get smooth air the whole way. Others get turbulence.
The middle one has the clearest mechanism attached.
Dr. Martin on after a baby:
Dr. Martin, The Doctor Is In, Episode 840But for a lot of women, it messes up their thyroid.
His explanation is that the progesterone is all left in the placenta. The body is then supposed to build it back, and sometimes the rebuild does not match what was there before. Estrogen is unchanged, progesterone is short, and the imbalance that follows lands on the thyroid.
Which is why a thyroid problem at 62 can date from 1988 and nobody ever joined the two.
What he would support
His order here follows from the argument. If the thyroid is being pulled on by the hormone pair, then the pair is the target, and the gland gets supported while that is sorted out.
Food first, because insulin sits in the middle of the same chart. The liver next, since that is where excess estrogen gets cleared. Then the estrogen coming in from outside, from plastics and chemicals the body reads as estrogen.
For the general case, the one that is not specific to women, the sibling article is the thyroid never acts on its own. For where this leaves a woman already past 60, there is thyroid issues for older women. And because cholesterol and thyroid get tangled together constantly, the whole cholesterol thing is a hoax is the one that untangles them.
Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing on it is a reason to change anything you have been prescribed for your thyroid.
Common questions
Why do women get thyroid problems more than men?
He says the ovaries have a direct line to the thyroid, so a woman's hormones pull on the gland. A man has no equivalent line running into it.
What is the main cause of thyroid trouble in women?
He names estrogen dominance as the number one issue, meaning too much estrogen compared to progesterone rather than a high estrogen reading.
Why do I gain weight with a slow thyroid?
He says when the thyroid is not up to snuff, women especially gain weight. It is the symptom he saw most, and the one most often blamed on eating.
Is a sluggish thyroid the same as hypothyroidism?
No. He is explicit that what he talks about is a sluggish thyroid, not necessarily what would be characterised as hypothyroidism, because that needs a certain number.
Does having a baby affect the thyroid?
He says for a lot of women it messes up their thyroid, and his reason is the progesterone left behind in the placenta.
Read next: Thyroid Symptoms In Women Over 60 and What Is A Normal TSH For A 60 Year Old Woman?.
Support the thyroid
Martin Clinic's Thyroid Support is the complete formula he built for the gland, for the situation he describes here, where the thyroid is being pulled on from somewhere else.
60-day money-back guarantee.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.
