Discover how gluten affects Hashimoto’s and your thyroid health. Uncover the truth behind diet and autoimmune thyroid conditions.
Understanding the Connection Between Gluten Consumption and Thyroid Health in Hashimoto’s Patients
Individuals with Hashimoto’s disease often wonder if adopting a gluten-free diet can positively impact their thyroid function and overall well-being. This inquiry is particularly relevant for those dealing with autoimmune thyroid conditions, as many patients report varying experiences with gluten consumption. Research indicates that gluten may exacerbate symptoms in some individuals with autoimmune disorders, potentially triggering inflammation or immune responses that could affect thyroid health.
When people with Hashimoto’s consume gluten, they may experience a range of reactions, from digestive issues to fatigue and increased autoimmune activity. The connection between gluten and thyroid health is still an area of ongoing study, but some experts suggest that eliminating gluten could lead to symptom relief for certain individuals. Ultimately, the effects of gluten on those with autoimmune thyroid disease can vary significantly from person to person, highlighting the importance of personalized dietary approaches in managing health.
Unraveling the Gluten Connection: Nourishing Your Thyroid Beyond the Myths
Do you need to be gluten-free if you have Hashimoto that’s the question we’re going to answer today okay so this is a controversial subject and you can find studies and opinions on both sides of the argument for this one however I want to give you my personal reasons why I believe that if you have autoimmune thyroid disease or Hashimoto you should.
Keep gluten out of your diet I’m going to pop some slides up here which I hope is going to explain this in a very not technical way this a very technical deep subject but I’m going to try to bring some levity to it and make it a lot easier to understand okay I’m down here now so to understand this I’m going to start with your gut because I think it’s.
Important to understand your gut and how this plays into it to understand the reaction that gluten can have in your gut you have thousands and thousands of these finger-like little projections called Villi they help to shuttle food particles and pathogens and all kinds of stuff through your gut here is a cartoon version of this but you can see all of.
The like various Villi microvilli all of that are closely butted up together and underneath that you have your bloodstream which can help shuttle nutrients to where it needs to go and then you also have immune cells underneath these Villi as well this is your gut barrier and the immune cells are underneath it and they’re going to.
Help look for things that shouldn’t be in your body in a healthy G you’re going to have things like viruses and pathogens hopefully you don’t have a whole entire Taco but undigested food proteins all the stuff that’s going through your gut and it’s going to just get shuttled through and then there’s going to be various mechanisms that help.
To take some of the nutrients through and to put that down through the bloodstream and then also to check to make sure that you don’t have any sort of really bad pathogens coming into your body unfortunately sometimes the gut gets damaged and you have holes inside of the gut lining and this is colloquially called leaky gut or.
Increased intestinal permeability and this is not a great thing because this exposes is your basically the inside of your body to the outside which is all of the stuff going through your digestive system and that can be things like the pathogens and viruses but also the food proteins and that’s not great because this layer is.
Not really supposed to come in contact with entire food proteins or even viruses so when it does it can create antibodies which is a great thing because that’s going to help to remember that there is a problem in your body but it also causes a huge alert for your whole entire system it’s chronic systemwide inflammatory and immune.
Response which is not a great thing because that if it keeps happening can lead to chronic inflammation now inflammation is a good thing at first it’s a response to harmful stimuli so if you fall and get a cut inflammation’s going to be the like the thing the first responder that’s really going to help to repair your skin but when you have it.
For a long time and it becomes systemwide that’s where we get into the danger zone and things like cancer and cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes and autoimmunity and all of these things can happen and then autoimmune tissue attacks if you already have them can go unchecked because your immune system’s off fighting all of.
These little fires all over your body and it can’t really care that your system’s gone to muck and started attacking itself it just doesn’t have the capacity to care and chronic inflammation by itself can cause symptoms like fatigue pain depression anxiety brain fog recurring infections bloating rashes joint stiffness and so.
Much more so your symptoms might not even be from your thyroid it could just be from inflammation or your chronic inflammation might be preventing your thyroid hormones from getting to your cells so you might be producing enough thyroid hormone or you might be taking it in Via like Leo thyroxin or Synthroid but it’s not actually getting from your.
Thyroid to your cells because chronic inflammation is stopping it where does gluten play into all of this why does all of this matter well everything living is made up of proteins but there are only so many protein combinations some protein structures are common between all forms of life so for example we share approximately 70% of the same.
DNA as an earthworm other living things that can share protein structures are things like infections the plants we eat tissues in our body so here’s an example protein structure of gluten gadin to be specific and thyroid tissue protein structure to an antibody they have a very close protein structure so that they might actually look exactly the.
Same to an antibody in a healthy immune system it wouldn’t matter because the antibody knows not to Signal attack on your thyroid tissue it would only be concerned with the gluten proteins because it’s foreign and in a healthy immune system one without chronic inflammation or leaky gut if an antibody formed against your thyroid it would get.
Stopped before it was able to Signal an attack on thyroid tissue because your body’s not off fighting all of those little fires it knows okay oops we shouldn’t be attacking our own tissue stop that but in a chronically inflamed system that has leaky Gat and the genes for Hashimoto your immune system is so preoccupied that these antibodies do not.
Get stopped so if you have the genes for Hashimoto you might already be making antibodies against thyroid tissue that don’t get stopped and then if you eat gluten you may make antibodies against gluten and then because gluten and thyroid tissue look so similar you may make antibodies against gluten and then Auto antibodies which are antibodies.
Against self against thyroid tissue and they won’t get stopped so your thyroid tissue gets destroyed because you ate gluten does this happen to everybody no or we don’t know but it’s a really important thing to know that it could happen you don’t want to unwittingly be causing thyroid tissue damage every time you eat this can also happen with other.
Proteins like the protein casine in dairy or Zion in corn and various other ones but if you don’t have a leaky gut these may not be as problematic and I’ll show you why in a second again this might not be a problem for you it depends on a bunch of factors your genes your gut health your stress levels and so much more but what if it is that’s.
Why I recommend playing safe and removing gluten if it’s going to be causing a problem with your thyroid a question I get a lot is does this only happen with people with celiac disease because well only people with celiac disease would be making antibodies against gluten right not necessarily when you have a leaky gut and anything.
Touches this immune layer underneath the gut lining it can produce antibodies against anything so strawberries for example could be something that could cause problems and cause antibodies and I can always tell if somebody has leaky gut because they’ll light up a food sensitivity test like this like a Christmas tree right this is a food.
Sensitivity test of one of my clients before she started any sort of healing diet and you can see there’s so many things on here like banana and avocado and mushroom and tea like just all kinds of stuff that you would never expect to have antibodies against but this is a clear indicator that this person has leaky gut after she did the autoimmune.
Protocol or AIP diet for 3 months she retested and barely any of these were being lit up anymore with antibodies so she’s able to eat them now so it just goes to show that anything can create antibodies it doesn’t have to be somebody that just has celiac disease so you heal a leaky gut and then something that was a problem can then go through.
Your gut and not cause a problem but this is where gluten is different than everything else gluten when it goes through your intestines actually can trigger a protein called zulin that causes these little tight junctions these little things that are buttered up together to come apart so that way the gluten can.
Just come down here and get into your gut an immune layer without like it’s just basically an imitation like hey open the door for me please and it just opens up so it can get down here into this immune layer whether or not you have leaky gut if you have the healthiest gut alive if it produces zulin it just gets right down here now.
Another way are these million dollar words retr transcytosis or lysosomal transport you don’t need to know these I just have them up in case you want to research more but the essential idea it’s a very technical process is that gluten proteins can get transported from the gut inside to your body to the immune layer just because it like kind.
Of almost tricks the body into letting it go into the gut layer it’s complicated process but just know that that can happen as well so there’s these two mechanisms the zulin opens up the door and then this way just shuttles the proteins right directly into your immune layer so these methods can cause gluten to get into your system and cause a.
Chronic systemwide inflammatory and immune response or even cause your thyroid tissue to be destroyed without even having that leaky gut when you have leaky gut it’s really bad and when you don’t have leaky gut it still can cause a problem hence if you do have autoimmune thyroid disease or hashimotos it may really be in your best interest.
To not include gluten in your diet so it really is a personal decision but these are the reasons why I don’t usually like my clients eating gluten and why many of them decide not to and it could be the reason why if you do have Hashimoto you are experiencing a lot of symptoms despite being on medication now if you do a healing Elimination Diet a lot of.
Times you can tolerate a more of all of these different kind of proteins that may cause this inflammatory respon response and maybe your inflammation and your immune response is not going to be as drastic but unfortunately with gluten it does have those mechanisms to kind of sneak by the little checks and balances so.
Yeah but hopefully I explained it in a way that wasn’t too Technical and that you understand now why gluten can be a problem for your thyroid
