Some diseases have the coolest names. Hashimoto’s autoimmune thyroiditis just rolls off your tongue even if your severe fatigue leaves you wanting to blame Dr. Hashimoto for this disease named after him. This malady gets quite a bit of press in the natural world and rightfully so as the high prevalence of this disease in…
Prior blog articles discussed the basics of T4 and T3, the primary active hormones of our thyroid gland, but now we turn our attention to the forgotten troublemaker in the family. Reverse T3, like its mirror image T3, has 3 iodines attached to a double tyrosine backbone. (see prior articles for more). The problem arises…
As my first blog on Thyroid Answers explained, our thyroid gland makes two active forms of thyroid hormone. The first difference between these forms, T4 and T3, lies in how many iodine atoms are attached to the backbone structure. As you might guess, T4 has 4 iodine and T3 has 3 iodine. They are added…
The thyroid uses a hormone as its foot on our metabolic gas pedal. The thyroid is a gland, or collection of tissue sharing one function, which secretes this hormone into our blood stream. The hormone travels throughout the body and interacts with receptors on cells. These cells respond by changing the rate of their cellular…
Who doesn’t want a little testosterone these days? The anti-aging science coming out indicates that both men and women should optimize their levels of this hormone. Of course, women need far less than men, but still need enough for metabolic benefits. Like nearly all of our health pathways, we want enough but not too much.…
We all prefer good news over bad news, but if functional medicine hopes to remain true to science and reality, we have to acknowledge some failures. At Sanctuary, some of our female patients not only want to overcome their chronic health issues but want to bear children. In helping them, we look to detox, fighting…
By definition, sub-clinical implies that something is “not” causing any noticeable symptoms. Thus the name “sub-clinical hypothyroidism” assumes that a lower than expected thyroid function causes no problems for an individual person in that category. In reality, a “sub-clinical” state stands out as more of a burglar in a pitch black room. Just because we…
Menopause, defined simply as the ceasing of menstruation, brings with it a plethora of changes to a woman’s body. Although there are a variety of reasons for a woman’s monthly cycle to stop, the most common one is menopause due to hormone loss, and specifically, estradiol, or estrogen loss. Although we are increasingly seeing women…
If you have been following my blog for any length of time, you know that I appreciate the sacrifice that mice and rats make for science. In this case, researchers created heart attacks in rats and monitored them for depression with or without estrogen. They found that female rats who had their ovaries removed experienced…
Hormone Cascade Where do hormones come from? Do they just appear out of thin air? Do they just ooze out of reproductive organs magically? No, just like most of our body’s chemical messengers, they are made from other substances in us. Our reproductive and adrenal hormones all begin as cholesterol, yes cholesterol. Despite its horrible reputation (not entirely deserved), cholesterol…