If you often feel you’re dragging yourself through the day or you've been struggling to lose weight for a long while despite eating all the right things, it might be worth considering whether your thyroid is doing the job it should.
The thyroid – a butterfly-shaped gland located in the neck – is the body’s internal motor, effectively setting the speed at which the body works. If it’s not up to scratch, you might experience a whole host of uncomfortable or annoying symptoms (see below).
The hormones it makes affect most cells in the body by increasing the basal metabolic rate, as well as augmenting heat production. That’s why people with an underactive thyroid often struggle to lose weight, feel the cold more easily and have low energy – imagine a record player playing a record at reduced speed.
Do any of these sound familiar?
If more than a few symptoms resonate with you, visit your GP to discuss symptoms and ask to get your thyroid tested.
GP testing
One of three things will happen after you have a blood test at the GP. The doctor may tell you your results look normal, in which case no further action will be taken*. Or you might be sent for further testing, if the result looks a little off, either immediately or for a retest in a few months’ time.
It’s much more common to have an underactive thyroid than an overactive one, and more common still for the underactive thyroid to be an autoimmune condition called Hashimoto’s, where the immune system destroys the thyroid gland to the extent that it can no longer function normally.
However, even with a diagnosis, many people still experience symptoms in spite of treatment.
What actually gets tested?
In the UK, the first thing doctors test is Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) levels. TSH is the hormone that tells your body to produce the actual thyroid hormones. If TSH is within range, your GP is unlikely do any further tests on the assumption that the rest of the thyroid hormone-producing cascade is working correctly.
If TSH is raised, your body is working harder than necessary to produce the right levels of thyroid hormones. At this point, your doctor may repeat the TSH test in a few months in order to compare levels.
Alternatively, they might test your Thyroxine (T4) levels to determine whether or not you’re producing the right levels of this hormone.
If this level is below range, you’ll likely be prescribed a synthetic form of thyroxine to supply the body with what it is not making itself. If the levels is above range, which suggests an overactive thyroid, you may be prescribed carbimazole and perhaps a beta-blocker.
*Still feeling tired and ‘rubbish’ despite treatment?
This a common problem. Initially, you may start to feel better, but many patients report sliding back into their previous pattern of symptoms.
The reasons why you’re not feeling better can be complex.
It’s worth knowing that regular GP testing does not cover T3 or rT3, so if you’re still feeling below par, it’s worth getting a full thyroid blood screen done privately. I work with all major private laboratories and can arrange this for you.
Do you have an autoimmune thyroid problem?
Another vital piece of information, which isn’t often covered by the standard GP test, is for the presence of autoimmune thyroid antibodies (thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin). This indicates your immune system is attacking your thyroid.
The autoimmune disease Hashimoto’s Disease (a form of underactive thyroid) is incredibly common but unless your GP tests for the antibodies, you won’t know that you have it.
GPs generally don’t test for this as it doesn’t affect their clinical management of you – whatever the diagnosis, you’re still going to be prescribed thyroxine.
However, this test is important to nutritional therapists, as the diagnosis requires an entirely different treatment protocol.
You may have high levels of these antibodies, but no symptoms of an underactive (or overactive) thyroid. The autoimmune element always comes first.
Hashimoto’s (underactive) and Graves’ (overactive) Disease affect the thyroid, but they are actually immune system disorders.
Adrenal stress - the missing link in thyroid treatment
Thyroid health is closely connected with your adrenals (two walnut-shaped stress glands located on your kidneys). If you have had any significant stress, your adrenal glands may not be performing optimally – and this is very bad news for thyroid health.
Adrenal stress disrupts the complex network of interactions needed to make the right amount of thyroid hormones, suppressing the thyroid function.
There are tests available privately for this. Unfortunately, adrenal problems are not recognized by UK GPs.
Addressing adrenal problems is important because the effects of stress affect energy production, fat storage (storing fat around the middle) and female hormone health.
The importance of iodine
Did you know that the mineral iodine is essential for the manufacture of thyroid hormones triiodothyronine (T3) and thyroxine (T4)? Thyroid hormones contain three or four iodine atoms respectively. If you’re serious about fixing your thyroid for once and for all, you could consider a urine test to determine whether or not you have sufficient levels of iodine.
Ready to get that thyroid back into shape?
There are a number of different tests, which we can use to measure your thyroid levels. These include a full blood draw, finger prick blood spot test and a urine test. I take a full medical history and evaluate my clients before deciding on the best option. If you have an underactive thyroid and are feeling below par, despite medication, I can help. Medication is just a piece of the puzzle. Why not contact me here.
WHY YOU REALLY, REALLY NEED THE D
Did you know that the sun is our main source of vitamin D? However, here in the UK, due to our latitude, we can’t get it from the sun between October and March. So, it’s important to make sure we can get it in other ways.
Why? Well, vitamin D is a superstar vitamin. More correctly, it’s actually a hormone. If levels are too low, this is bad news for health. I’m talking cancer, osteoporosis, rickets in children, asthma, tuberculosis, multiple sclerosis (and other autoimmune diseases), heart disease, diabetes, and dental problems.
WHY SO LOW?
10 SIGNS YOU MIGHT HAVE A VITAMIN D DEFICIENCY
Symptoms like these are commonly overlooked because they don’t feel life threatening, and they’re often dismissed as normal, everyday aches and pains you have to deal with. But you don’t have to put up with these symptoms of ill health!
WHO SHOULD GET TESTED?
If any of the above resonates with you, then you should definitely get tested. You might find your GP will do this for you. My experience is that they are usually amenable to this particular test.
If your doctor won’t test, consider getting it checked out privately. In the big scheme of things (like life and, you know, your health), the test is not expensive but it could change your enjoyment of your life.
The test is the 25-hydroxy vitamin D test (also known as the 25-OH vitamin D test or Calcidiol 25-hydroxycholecalciferol test). It’s the most accurate way to measure how much vitamin D is in your body.
Your doctor will want to know that there is a valid reason for having you tested. Go back through the list of symptoms and go in strong with this being the reason why you want to be tested.
If you’re the kind of person who doesn’t want to ask, feels uncomfortable asking or is just curious to know their levels, you can get the test done privately for £44. It’s a finger prick test, so you can do it easily at home, then get guidance on how much to supplement safely. If this is you, and you want to know more, just hit reply to this email and we’ll talk.
If you do take a test and you’re very low, you’ll need an intense 4-6 weeks supplementation at a higher dose and then re-testing to see the impact it’s had. There is such a thing as too much vitamin D (known as vitamin D toxicity). You’d have to be going some way to get there, but it is possible, which is why it is essential you know your levels before you start guzzling any supplements.
I know what you’re thinking. Here’s a few of those ‘yes, buts’ you have going on…
I hear you. If you seriously have nothing wrong with you, if you didn’t identify with any of the symptoms in the list, then don’t bother. But if you did…
HOW TO UP YOUR VITAMIN D
Or if you'd like to find out more about your nutrient levels, or are concerned about any symptoms, please book in a free 30 minute health check with me today - just click here.
If there’s one vitamin most people have heard of, it’s vitamin C. Whose mum didn’t urge them to eat fruit – preferably oranges – to keep up their vitamin C levels? When you catch a cold, you drink hot water with lemon – because it contains vitamin C - and even people who are most sceptical of nutritional supplements pop the occasional vitamin C pill when they feel under the weather.
There is lots of research about the efficacy of vitamin C and its role in immunity, particularly in warding off colds and flu. As you head out again into the world, it seemed a good time to have the vitamin C conversation. So today, I’m going to be talking about whether you really need to supplement, what vitamin C actually does.
Do you need to supplement?
…After all, nature wouldn’t have left you defenceless, would it, if there is a crucial vitamin contained in food. Can you not just eat fruit and veg and be done?
Adults in the UK are advised to consume 40mg [Ireland: 80mg] of vitamin C per day, which is just enough to ward off scurvy, a deadly disease caused by severe vitamin C deficiency.
That little may not be enough to ensure optimum immune defence, though. Worldwide, recommendations for vitamin C range from 40 to 220mg per day. Most other animals can make their own vitamin C in the liver. Due to a genetic mutation, humans can’t. Other mammals produce several grams of vitamin C per day. And they can increase production more than 10-fold when under stress.
Humans are not the only mammals that are unable to generate vitamin C. Others are primates, guinea pigs, and fruit bats. As our closest relatives – the great apes – have the same mutation, it stands to reason that humans were already unable to produce vitamin C when evolution sent them off on their own path millions of years ago.
We – and the other non-producing animals – have had plenty of time to adapt. To some extent, we make up for the inability to produce the vitamin by having red blood cells that can recycle “spent” vitamin C and re-use it. But our body cannot store vitamin C; we have to ingest it every single day.
What does vitamin C actually do?
Vitamin C is involved in 15,000 metabolic processes, and no other vitamin has such a wide variety of effects. As it is an antioxidant, ascorbic acid (a form of vitamin C) plays an important role as a free radical scavenger. That means it protects fats, proteins, DNA and cell membranes from damage caused by free radicals. Now, don’t worry, I’m not going to list the 15,000 jobs of vitamin C, but I’d like to highlight a few that are crucial in your immune defence.
Vitamin C protects mucous membranes, your “skin on the inside”, inside the mouth, the nose, the lungs, along the digestive tract, the urethra and the vagina. Vitamin C is crucial for collagen production, a protein that strengthens your skin as well as the mucous membranes. As all of these surfaces are in contact with the outside world and, therefore, potentially nasty microbes, you want them to be healthy, strong and hold tight. Vitamin C also protects those membranes from free radical damage and accelerates healing from injury.
Vitamin C supports the immune response by stimulating the production of special immune cells called B-cells, T-cells and phagocytes. More B- and T-cells means more antibodies to fight against trouble like viruses – and this is a good thing. Phagocytes are immune cells that gobble up intruders like viruses and bacteria, a bit like the iconic arcade game icon Pac Man. Vitamin C protects these phagocytes from oxidative damage. It also keeps them supple, helps them work better, and promotes the “suicide” of damaged cells (called apoptosis).
A crucial function of vitamin C is that it helps dampen down inflammatory cytokines, substances the body produces when under attack. By interfering with the production of certain cytokines, vitamin C can reduce the risk of a “cytokine storm”, which is something you really don’t want to happen.
Vitamin C is a co-factor for enzymes that are responsible for phase 1 of liver detoxification. In that function, it helps your body metabolise medication. It improves iron absorption, reduces the toxicity of heavy metals and promotes their excretion.
As if that wasn’t enough, vitamin C protects proteins from damage caused by eating too much sugar. The damage caused by excess sugar in the bloodstream is how diabetes is diagnosed. The diabetes marker HbA1c is a protein damaged by sugar. Damaged proteins can’t do their job anymore, and it is this that leads to the many symptoms of diabetes.
Vitamin C and infections – what does the science say?
If you google the subject, you will come across plenty of media reports that will tell you not to bother as “Vitamin C doesn’t really help”. But is that true?
A literature review of 2013 found that vitamin C does not reduce your chances of getting a cold. Still, it does reduce the duration of the cold – a benefit worth having, if you ask me! One of the studies reviewed found that there was a significant benefit from an 8g therapeutic dose given at the onset of symptoms. Four years later, the same author was able to add another controlled trial to the success list: There was a significant dose-response for the duration of common cold symptoms with up to 6-8g/day of vitamin C. Three controlled trials found that vitamin C prevented pneumonia. Two controlled trials found a treatment benefit of vitamin C for pneumonia patients. On the whole, the review confirmed that vitamin C does not decrease the average incidence of colds in the general population. Yet, it halved the number of colds in very physically active people. The reviewer concluded that the negative findings of some studies might be explained by the low doses of 3–4 g/day of vitamin C, 6-8g seems to be more promising.
Are we vitamin C deficient?
Depending who you ask, you need between 40mg and 3g (=3,000mg) of vitamin C per day - the equivalent of between 1 and 40 oranges per day. That’s a vast difference! And that’s just the daily requirement before you’re even sick and require therapeutic doses. According to trials, only high doses of at least 6g or even 8g made a significant difference.
For us humans, vitamin C is an essential nutrient. It is abundant in fresh fruit and veg. The riper and unprocessed those are, the higher their vitamin C content. Animal products contain vitamin C as well, mainly within offal. Vitamin C is water-soluble and highly sensitive to light, heat and oxidation. That means that storage and processing (including cooking) have a significant impact on the vitamin C content of fruit and veg and can reduce it by up to 90%. So, even if you regularly eat fruit and vegetables – and so many people sadly don’t – you may not get all the vitamin C you need from your diet.
Vitamin-C-producing animals produce ten times more vitamin C than normal when under stress. In humans, stress-related disorders were found to be more common in people with vitamin C deficiency, and improvement was observed when the vitamin was supplemented. This suggests that stress depletes vitamin C – and who isn’t stressed these days?
As I said earlier, vitamin C protects proteins from glucose. Sugar-coated proteins cannot work properly, leading to a variety of symptoms and diseases, e.g. blindness, neuropathy, cardiovascular disease and more. If your diet is high in sugar, a lot of vitamin C is needed to protect your proteins from damage. Another reason why your vitamin C levels may be low.
Medication is another drain on vitamin C supplies. Drugs must be detoxified via the liver, and here vitamin C is required, too. Elderly people need more vitamin C than younger adults. And do I even need to say that smokers and those who drink alcohol have a higher requirement of vitamin C?
Inflammation can greatly reduce how much vitamin C is available to be used (the ‘bioavailability’). For example, a viral infection can cause such a significant decrease in the vitamin C content of immune cells within hours that the scurvy limit is reached. All chronic diseases are associated with some degree of inflammation. Anyone not entirely healthy is likely to have low vitamin C levels even before they contract a viral infection.
So, chances are that many of us are deficient even to begin with, in which case there is very little chance that we can combat an infection with what we’ve got. High dosage supplementation is necessary for a therapeutic effect.
Could you overdose on vitamin C?
You can absorb 90% of the vitamin C contained in an oral dose of 300mg. However, you can achieve a higher concentration of vitamin C if you take several smaller doses over the course of the day. Immune cells can store ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Their vitamin C level can be 10 to 100 times higher than that of the blood.
Some health professionals dismiss even the positive studies on the efficacy of vitamin C when it comes to reducing the duration of a viral infection, because they consider the necessary dosages at least 6-8g as too high. After all, more than 1g vitamin C taken orally could cause digestive distress. It is true that the most common side effect of vitamin C toxicity are loose stools, but considering that most people have a high requirement due to stress, inflammation, smoking, alcohol, medication and more (see above), toxicity is very, very rare. If loose stools should occur, you can take that as a good sign: You have decent vitamin C levels and can reduce your dose back down to bowel tolerance (the point at which your bowel movements become normal again).
According to Wehrmann (2020), no harmful side effects have been observed with daily oral doses of up to 10g over a long period of time and with short-term high-dose therapies of up to 1.5g/kg body weight per day. The formation of kidney stones in healthy people due to high doses of vitamin C has been refuted. Oxalate excretion in urine is only slightly increased by supplemental vitamin C. High dose vitamin C supplementation is, however, counter-indicated in people with iron storage problems (haemochromatosis), renal insufficiency, disorders of oxalic acid metabolism, retinal bleeding and favism, a hereditary disorder causing allergy-like reactions to broad (fava) beans.
What can you do to increase your vitamin C levels?
These are all great health tips and if they help improve the natural functioning of your immune system, that's great news, isn't it? If you'd like to chat further about your diet, then book in a free health review with me today - click here to book.
WHAT DOES A NUTRITIONIST DO EXACTLY?
Most people get – on a conceptual level at least – that they should probably eat a bit better than they do, they should probably move more and take the time for more ‘me time’ to live a long and happy life.
‘Life’ seems to get in the way of achieving that. Many of us are juggling jobs and the complexities of modern relationships, leaving little time to dedicate to the business of ‘being healthy’. Convenience often wins. It’s not that that’s wrong per se, but here’s the thing: all the time we are not eating or moving or living as well as we know to do, we are silently getting sicker. That may actually be going-to-hospital sick or it may just mean having health niggles that bother us greatly but that we have learned to cope with. I’m talking here about things like IBS or other tummy troubles, PCOS, perimenopause, PMT, arthritis, stress or anxiety, haywire hormones, or possibly weight that has crept on over the years and you can’t seem to shift it, no matter what you try.
What I want to share with you today is that the food you eat matters more than you can possibly imagine. And that, in many cases, simply by making changes to your diet, the symptoms of some of these conditions can be improved so markedly that there is a really profound shift in how you experience life.
WHAT IS NUTRITIONAL THERAPY?
Nutritional therapy used to be referred to dismissively as ‘alternative medicine’. It’s only now that the science of what to eat is getting the recognition it deserves and is being actively promoted by a small number of well-known and recently enlightened medical doctors, like Dr Rangan Chatterjee and Dr Michael Mosely.
Essentially, nutritional therapists apply the latest hypotheses and research in nutrition and health sciences to you and your symptoms and they come up with a diet, lifestyle and (sometimes) supplement plan to support those needs. They might bring in some coaching to help you put the ideas into practice in a meaningful way or break through whatever barriers have held you back in the past.
PERSONAL SERVICE
It’s a very personal approach. You might hear practitioners talk about people being ‘biochemically unique’. That means that there isn’t a single way of eating that is right for everyone. Sandra might have PMS and you want to lose weight, for example. Sandra might have a history of antibiotic use, while you had your appendix out when you were 14. Sandra might have an intolerance to dairy, while you hate strawberries. I could go on, but you can imagine the thousands of different permutations here. And the fact is that your DNA, previous medical history, and any current symptoms as well as what you like and don’t like, not to mention your personal circumstances are all important when a nutritionist creates a plan for you.
It is personalised just for you. That takes both time and skill. You could download something from the internet – if you knew what you were looking for – but it is not the same. A nutrition practitioner may also work with supplements targeted to a specific condition or your own health goal. This can be a minefield – potentially dangerous and inevitably costly – if you don’t know what you’re doing.
WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE SEE A NUTRITIONIST IF THE RESULTS ARE SO GOOD?
It’s unfortunate that so many people don’t understand what a huge effect a personalised food and lifestyle programme can have on the symptoms they have or how they experience their life.
Newspapers are full of soundbites about the latest foods, but they don’t really join the dots, and it’s difficult to see what might be possible for you. The vast majority of doctors – even those being trained today – have next to no current knowledge or practical experience of what their patients should be eating or how they might integrate the theory into their lives. They live in a world, by and large, where the solution presented during your 10-minute session lies in a prescription.
Some – like Chatterjee – are taking on training in something much bigger called Functional Medicine. This is a framework for considering that the symptoms you are experiencing are a result of imbalances in your body and, rather than treat the specific symptoms themselves, nutrition professionals try to understand the root cause of the problem and base their programme around that. If you think about it: nearly all medications merely suppress symptoms. Only very few are an actual cure – antibiotics come to mind here. The exclusively pharmacological approach conventional medicine so often employs does nothing to uncover the root causes. Metformin lowers blood glucose – but why is it high in the first place? Statins lower cholesterol – but why is it elevated? Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) numb pain – but why are you in pain? These are the questions nutrition professionals will ask before embarking on a quest to find out to then be able to address the root cause.
WHAT HAPPENS IN A NUTRITION CONSULTATION?
Your first consultation will last up to 90 minutes. You will have been asked to complete and send back a nutritional therapy questionnaire before you visit. During the session, we’ll go into your medical history, your health goals and any other challenges you’re facing, what you generally eat, what you like to eat, what you hate to eat and how you have to eat (on the bus, in a rush at your desk, and so on). There’s no judgement and anything you share with me is kept in confidence.
Nutritional therapy sessions are usually sold in programmes that run over 12 weeks. This is because it is rarely helpful for anyone to leave without the knowledge that they have several more sessions in place to help them implement the programme, make changes at a pace that suits them, and to deal with any challenges or questions that come up along the way.
WHAT IF I ALREADY KNOW WHAT TO DO?
Knowing what you should be doing is only part of the problem if you are unhappy with an aspect of your health. Staying motivated is the hardest part of any plan. The single best way to stay in the zone is to have a buddy or coach who can give you a nudge or call you out if you start to go off piste. I’d say this is the single biggest thing that makes the difference between reaching your goal and actually staying there. That’s where health coaching comes in. It keeps you accountable will ensure all that good work doesn’t go to waste.
If you'd like to find out more, why don't you book in a free 30 minute health review. We can talk about what's going on for you, what you've tried before and I can give you some simple tips to get you feeling better right away. Click here to book.
Please get in touch and find out more - I offer a free 30-minute exploratory call.
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Disclaimer: ‘Please note that nutritional therapy is not medical advice - this should always be sought from your doctor or other medical provider. I aim to work alongside your doctor or GP to provide nutritional and lifestyle advice to support any underlying imbalances.'
