Features of our diet directly affect many processes in the body. Including, on a thyroid gland. Therefore, patients constantly ask questions about diets and products for hypothyroidism, thyrotoxicosis, nodes, and the autoimmune process of the thyroid gland. What do doctors offer? How is this scientific knowledge reflected in the articles of copywriters?
1. You need to eat!
- Is it possible to starve for my illness? - sometimes patients are asked in cases of thyroid disease. Indeed, the restriction of food and different duration of food starvation has long been successfully used in medicine. Many religions use posts. What to say about individual starvation popularizers, examples of which are captivating for their simplicity and the likely prospect of effect.
But it should be remembered that the main function of the thyroid gland is to increase energy metabolism in all organs and tissues. This is a caloric energy metabolism, i.e. the main exchange of the body. The body receives this energy only with food!
When you limit the receipt of calories from food and, moreover, the complete cessation of food energy, stimulation of the thyroid gland increases. This happens in connection with the increased demand for more thyroid hormones. After all, only with their help you can remove the reserves of carbohydrates and fats to sustain life.
The enhanced work of the thyroid gland leads to its further change and depletion of its tissue. Therefore, it should be remembered that hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism (thyrotoxicosis ...) and even euthyroses (regardless of the presence of nodes) are not diseases that can be cured by starvation.
2. Are cruciferous plants (cabbage ...) dangerous?
Chemicals in some types of cabbage plants (not in white) can compete with iodine for their attachment sites in the areas of thyroid hormone formation inside the gland. Therefore, the discoverers of such a phenomenon were quick to report to the scientific community that cruciferous plants allegedly could contribute to the overstressing of the thyroid gland. After all, she has to work harder to capture the right amount of iodine. What can cause goiter…
This scientific news quickly spread in the early 2000s through endocrinological guidelines. It also penetrated the minds of doctors, where it remained the "absolute truth." After all, scientists can not be wrong, and professors will not publish errors in authoritative textbooks.
But as it turned out, in order for the thyroid gland to change in people eating cabbage, you need a very large amount of this product. Absolute cabbage diet for several months.
The usual use of cabbage in borscht and salads does not lead to overstretching of the thyroid gland.
3. Do I need products with iodine?
- I heard that in Greek nuts with shells a lot of iodine. Do I need to take something like this for my thyroid disease? - such and similar questions are not rare in the practice of the endocrinologist.
Scientific statistics showed that only 20-25% of patients with hypothyroidism have iodine deficiency. Moreover, this iodine deficiency is not the source (that is, not the primary one, not the iodine deficiency became the source of hypothyroidism), but a secondary one. It appeared as a result of increased iodine consumption by a tensely functioning thyroid gland (for the formation of the necessary amount of its hormones T4 and T3).
By analyzing the concentration of iodine in the urine, you can determine the need for products (or medicines) containing iodine. Such a study will make it possible to understand the need for products with iodine.