Effective treatments for an under-active thyroid
Effective treatments for an underactive thyroid include dietary changes, as well as thyroid treatments using medications. Integrative medicine expert Aviva Romm, MD, discusses foods to support thyroid function and treatment with medication.
Transcript
Selenium is one of the most important nutrients that you need to convert the inactive form of your thyroid
that's the most prevalent kind that your body produces to the active kind. [MUSIC PLAYING]
So if your thyroid is underactive, you can spend a little bit of time, maybe a couple of months, trying some dietary changes, for example, making sure
that you're getting enough iodine in your diet, which is easy to do with one to two tablespoons of fresh or dried dulse flakes.
Dulse is a seaweed, which may sound kind of funny. But it's actually a very tasty ground-up or powdered vegetable
that you can sprinkle onto your salads, onto-- into soups, onto whole grains. And it's yummy.
It's tasty. It's salty-flavored. So iodine is really important. And, again, it's one to two tablespoons of fresh dulse flakes or dried dulse flakes.
Another thing is getting plenty of zinc in your diet. And the best way to get zinc is through pumpkin seeds,
shellfish, spinach, and cashews. So those are all delicious things that you can add just as part of a regular diet.
You don't have to eat any of these every day. Additionally, selenium is one of the most important nutrients that you need to convert the inactive form of your thyroid
that's the most prevalent kind that your body produces to the active kind. And it just takes two Brazil nuts a day.
That's all you have to eat to get plenty of selenium to support a healthy thyroid function. If you've been doing these things for maybe eight
weeks or 12 weeks, and you're not noticing a difference, or if your symptoms are pretty severe and really getting in the way of having a good quality of life,
you might want to just forego those and go straight to your doctor and say, you know, you think you really might need some thyroid treatment
with medication. At that point, the tests will be reviewed. And if your labs are in the range that indicate the need to treat with medication,
that's usually the most effective next step. And the types of medications are variable. There's synthetic hormone in the form
of levothyroxine or synthroid. And then there are a number of natural forms that people use that combine these two forms that I
mentioned earlier, T3 and T4, so Armour Thyroid, Nature-Throid, and a few others are also really good options.
thyroid issues
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