Get expert advice on whether a gluten-free diet is necessary for Hashimoto’s Disease. Consult with dietitians for personalized recommendations.
Important considerations for those with Hashimoto’s Disease and gluten sensitivity
Hashimoto’s Disease is an autoimmune condition that affects the thyroid gland. In this video, Kate discusses whether following a gluten free diet can be beneficial for individuals with Hashimoto’s Disease. She explains what Hashimoto’s Disease is and how it can be acquired, as well as the potential benefits of a gluten free diet for managing symptoms associated with the condition.
Kate also provides guidance on what foods to focus on when following a gluten free diet with Hashimoto’s Disease, emphasizing the importance of individualized nutrition and becoming an expert on one’s own body. The information presented in the video is evidence-based, ensuring that viewers are receiving accurate and reliable information to help them make informed decisions about their dietary choices.
Gluten-Free or Not? Decoding the Hashimoto’s Diet Dilemma
Here and I’m excited to answer our next question this week’s question is from Lizzy from Kansas City Lizzie asks dear dietitians I was recently diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease and my doctor told me that I should eat a gluten-free diet is this true should I really be eating a gluten-free diet because I have Hashimoto’s disease Lizzy thanks for the.
Question so I’m really excited to hear first that you’re doctor did recommend some dietary interventions to help with your condition it’s exciting to hear that medical providers do offer some advice about what to eat to help with certain conditions you may have now that being said is this information accurate do you really need to be eating a.
Gluten-free diet if you have Hashimoto’s disease okay so first let’s talk about what Hashimoto’s disease is so Hashimoto’s disease is a chronic immune disorder where our body has determined that our thyroid cells are a danger to it so our body starts attacking its own thyroid cells this decreases the level of tea lymphocytes or tea cells that we.
Have in our body those are important immune cells with the decrease in the tea cells we have an increase in inflammatory cyto kindes that are going throughout our whole body so the condition is characterized by elevated serum levels of anti-thyroid molecules and the two most common are called anti-tpo and anti-tg molecules this.
Condition is also characterized by abnormal serum levels of thyroid hormones T3 and T4 so this may mean that they’re either too high or too low depending on what condition you have an ultrasound of your thyroid is also required for diagnosis and that would show that we either have an enlarged thyroid or perhaps nodules on the.
Thyroid it would also show increased fibrosis in your thyroid which would mean fibrous cells and potentially fatty tissue that could make your thyroid less efficient at producing these hormones difficult to diagnose Hashimoto’s disease because there are many different symptoms that you could have and sometimes they kind of wax and Wan.
Sometimes you’ll feel really intense symptoms and sometimes not feel so many so some of the symptoms of Hashimoto’s are reduced heart rate so that would mean that your heart is beating slower swelling of subcutaneous tissues so things like water retention swelling in your legs arms or face a B12 deficiency or an iron deficiency nervous system.
Disorders constipation which is due to decreased intestinal motility chronic fatigue mood swings reproductive issues hair loss difficulty concentrating and overall a decreased quality of life which isn’t shocking hearing about all those different symptoms you could have um Hashimoto is also correlated with other autoimmune imune diseases so.
Sometimes when you have one autoimmune disease it kind of makes your body really ripe for the picking for another autoimmune disease and a couple of these autoimmune diseases that are commonly diagnosed with Hashimoto are typ1 diabetes lymphocytic thyroid ois and celiac disease so about 5% of adults with Hashimoto disease are also.
Diagnosed with celiac disease and that’s compared to about 1% of the general population that has celiac disease the increase in anti-thyroid molecules in our bloodstream as well as different vitamin deficiencies also make patients with Hashimoto at risk for mood disorders especially depression and obsessive compulsive disorder how do you.
Develop Hashimoto’s disease sometimes it’s genetic it can also be linked to different pharmaceutical drugs and exposure to radiation it may also be linked to chronic stress which can cause an increase in cortisol secretion and cause an increase in inflammatory cyto kindes in the body or chronic inflammation it can also be linked to.
Diet and lifestyle so diet is really important in the treatment of Hashimoto and in the occurrence of Hashimoto it could be linked to excessive iodine intake and in the United States our table salt is supplemented by iodine if we don’t have enough iodine then it is a problem and it can cause us to have goers which is a big swollen thyroid but.
If we have too much iodine that can also be negative to our thyroid gland another nutrient that is really critical in the functionality of our thyroid is selenium so selenium is a nutritional antioxidant it’s found in foods like Brazil nuts organ Meats and Seafood so it helps to reduce oxidative stress or chronic inflammation and it also works as a.
Co-actor with those thyroid hormones to help make them be effective in our body selenium is an antioxidant micronutrient so it helps to reduce oxidative stress in our body which is also known as chronic inflammation or inflammatory cyto kindes so it can help to deactivate or activate specific thyroid hormones working as a co-factor so this is a.
Really important nutrient as it relates to our thyroid Health that being said more isn’t always better because too much selenium can be toxic to our body so now let’s get straight to the question does the gluten-free diet actually help with the symptoms of Hashimoto so if you have celiac disease which we talked about earlier as being.
Common to have with Hashimoto’s disease you do need to follow a gluten-free diet that’s the only treatment method for celiac currently but what if you don’t have celiac disease do you still benefit from having a gluten-free diet so it’s not been clearly demonstrated that gluten can stimulate the immune system to produce those antibodies that destroy.
Thyroid tissue but it is hypothesized after reading through a lot of different studies I found that the gluten-free diet after the diagnosis of Hashimoto’s disease and soon after the diagnosis of Hashi demoto disease can really help with the prevention of developing other autoimmune conditions like celiac disease so that sounds kind of funny.
That you know if you stop eating gluten soon after your diagnosis of Hashimoto’s disease you could prevent having celiac disease why does that matter if you are following a gluten-free diet it would be okay you know every once in a while to have something that has gluten in it and you might have a symptom flare up but with celiac disease it’s not okay to.
Kind of have those slip ups every once in a while you could be dealing with some serious issues if that’s the case so like I said earlier right now there really isn’t concrete evidence that a gluten-free diet is beneficial to Hashimoto’s patients one meta analysis of four different randomized controlled trials did show promise for gluten-free.
Dry diet in the treatment of Hashimoto’s disease this would be especially important in a patient with gluten related conditions which include celiac disease non Celiac gluten sensitivity or the presence of anti-trans glutamate antibodies in the bloodstream without a biopsy of the intestines so a biop of your um intestines is required for a.
True diagnosis of celiac disease because we want we want to see that that gluten is actually damaging your intestinal mucosa and getting rid of those microvilli inside your intestine a gluten-free diet has been shown to have a general anti-inflammatory effect overall in autoimmune diseases and it can improve symptoms alongside.
Phological treatment like Synthroid or Leo thyrox which is what you would use to replace thyroid hormones that are low in your body this was a small metaanalysis of four studies and so the data isn’t really robust enough for us to recommend this for everyone but it is promising gluten-free diet can help reduce.
Intestinal permeability in patients with Hashimoto disease so all of our intestines are permeable to some extent if they weren’t then we weren’t going to be able to get any of the nutrition coming out from our food it would just kind of pass through our body but when our intestines become too permeable that’s when it really becomes a problem.
And we need to make some changes if it becomes too permeable then larger molecules can escape from our intestinal walls and kind of float around in our body and when they’re in those weird places that they’re not supposed to be our body says o I don’t like that and it starts to attack that molecule so that’s when our body starts to react or flare.
Up to these things that are actually benign just because it’s finding it in different places in our body and that causes an issue the gluten-free diet can also decrease a mild inflammatory state of the intestines so reducing the amount of autoimmune triggers in your body can also decrease those amounts of antithyroid molecules that might be.
Attacking your immune system a gluten-free diet may also help with the absorption and use of selenium vitamin D iodine and zinc which are all micronutrients that are necessary for thyroid hormone production and for function of our thyroid being deficient in these nutrients can increase symptoms of.
Hashimoto’s disease so anytime you make a type of diet change where you’re eliminating a specific ingredient it means that you’re going to have to be way more mindful in the choices that you’re making and you’re going to be needing to read labels and really think about what you’re going to have so that increased level of mindfulness does need.
To be noted when you’re looking at these studies because if people are reporting decreased inflammation weight loss all sorts of different positive outcomes it could be because they’re just paying more attention to what they’re eating overall and being more selective with those restrictions too you might have to cook more at home or you might have to.
Eliminate some of those processed foods the ultr processed foods that you keep in your home that contain gluten so keep that in mind as you think about some of these different outcomes potentially just making some of those changes like cooking more at home being more mindful about what you eat incorporating more fruits vegetables and whole grains into.
Your diet can make some of these changes one of the key factors in eliminating inflammation from your body is being at an appropriate weight for your height because atopos tissue is by nature inflammatory so if we have too much atopos tissue it’s constantly secreting these inflammatory hormones into our body which leads to inflammation so.
Making sure that you’re taking in the right amount of calories for your body is one way to reduce inflammation overall a gluten-free diet can have higher levels of ultra-processed foods that are trying to mimic or dupe traditionally gluten containing foods and these foods can be higher in lipids trans fat salt and saturated fat and.
They might even have lower levels of protein fiber and micronutrients so just because a food says gluten-free does not necessarily mean that it’s healthier when I discuss a gluten-free diet with clients I focus on using naturally gluten-free grains and starches rather than finding a dupe for the gluten containing food so an.
Example of this would be I’m going to have rice or quinoa instead of a gluten-free pasta to substitute for that pasta because if I I choose a pasta made out of rice it’s going to be significantly more processed than that Rice itself so there are some foods where you need to find a dupe for example bread if we want to have a.
Gluten-free bread we’ve got to find one but overall I focus on adding in more naturally gluten-free foods that are free from processing so now we know that a glutenfree diet may help with symptoms of Hashimoto’s disease but it’s not necessarily clinically proven at this point in time so what should I eat if I.
Have Hashimoto’s disease again I talked about maintaining a healthy weight and eating the appropriate amount of calories for what your body needs because having that excess atopos tissue or fat can secrete more inflammatory cyto kindes so maintaining a healthy weight for people with Hashimoto’s disease can be more difficult because.
Thyroid hormones control the way that our body processes energy or food so this condition typically ically means that our metabolism is lower but not always can also mean that we’re struggling with fatigue or mood swings brain fog and a lot of times those kind of feelings make me reach for something sweet or with really simple.
Carbohydrates so I can just get some quick energy and I think that that’s pretty common for people with Hashimoto’s disease to feel so some of the best results and improvements to our thyroid hormones came from a study where patients were eating a diet of 1,400 to 1600 calories per day based on their weight and they.
Were eating macronutrient ratios of 25% protein 30% fat and 45% carbohydrate so that still is a pretty low carbohydrate diet but you can see that those are balanced macronutrients and if you want to know more about macronutrients you can check out my last video so the diet that we are eating we want to be rich in antioxidants like vitamin A vitamin C.
Vitamin E polyphenols which are specific molecules that are only found in plant foods that provide different benefits in our body we want omega-3 fatty acids monounsaturated fatty acids and polyunsaturated fatty acids and we want to have plenty of zinc iron folic acid B12 and magnesium iodine and selenium like we talked about earlier are.
Definitely important for the function and synthesis of thyroid hormones so you’ll want to have those in your diet as appropriate one of the most easy foods to get selenium into your diet is to add two or three Brazil nuts per day they’re very high in selenium and these levels kind of vary between different foods.
Because they come from the soil and the quality of the soil that your food is grown in makes a difference in how much selenium is contained in it another study showed positive effects from supplementing 4,000 IUS of vitamin D each day 2,000 micrograms of Selena methanone and 30 milligrams of zinc gluconate per day another supplement.
That has shown benefits for people with hypothyroidism or Hashimoto’s disease is black cumin seed oil also known as Nigella sativa talked a lot about chronic inflammation and inflammatory cyto kindes and I just want to be clear that the diet that we’re looking at for Hashimoto’s disease should be an anti-inflammatory diet but any.
Anti-inflammatory diet is kind of different for each person because something that could inflame my body for example lactose if I’m lactose intolerant might work really well for someone who doesn’t have lactose intolerance so this is going to take a little bit of knowing yourself and experimenting with your body I always.
Like to tell my patients that they are the expert on themselves you know the most about your body and how things feel so I’m here to help guide you to find different opt options but in the end it’s going to be you who makes that final decision this diet should be rich in leafy greens vegetables lean parts of meat and poultry and whole grains that.
Are unprocessed so pretty much standard across the board this is the diet that we’re looking at the Mediterranean diet has been one of the most well-studied diets in the history of different diets and it is known as an anti-inflammatory diet really focuses on a lot of plant Foods legum seeds healthy sources of fat lean.
Proteins and lowfat dairy products in moderation again overall I’m going to sound like a broken record just because something works for someone else doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to work for you so something that I would encourage you to do if you’re struggling with Hashimoto’s disease is use yourself as a little bit of an experiment start.
With keeping a detailed food journal so in your Journal you could write down how much of each food that you’re eating either weighing it out with a food scale using your hands to measure different quantities or measuring cups and spoons or you can just write down what you’re having and then I also would want you to journal a little bit about what your.
Symptoms are so sometimes you know we’ll say oh I felt really brain fog and tired and achy this particular day but I can’t remember what I ate so if we’re writing that information down it’s going to be really helpful to you yourself and to any of your providers that might be helping you determine what kind of issues you’re having so that’s the first.
Step the second step is that I want you to kind of make these little changes one at a time and see if you notice any difference the changes with Hashimoto might be very very small so potentially an example would be adding vitamin D supplementation you may or may not see and feel a huge difference from that but if you’re not noticing any negative side.
Effects you could think well maybe this is helpful and if it’s not too inconvenient for you that’s something that I would recommend continuing and then we would add on another habit like maybe I cook dinner at home three times a week and on those nights I work on having gluten-free foods Journal about how you feel on those days and what.
Specific symptoms that you might have so again the more data that you have the better recommendations that we can make for you so to wrap everything up with this research a gluten-free diet may be something that’s helpful for the treatment of symptoms in Hashimoto’s disease but it hasn’t necessarily been clinically proven yet all of the studies.
That I looked at are really recent so I think that this is going to become a big area of research as it is something that affects a lot of people especially women so it’s something that I’m definitely interested in seeing what the research says in the future thank you guys so much for your questions it was so great to see you and I can’t wait to get your.
Next one bye
