How Toxins Cause Graves’ and Thyroid Disease—and How to Fix It
with Dr. Eric Osansky
Dr. Wendy Myers
Hello and welcome to the Myers Detox Podcast. I’m Dr. Wendy Myers, and on this show we talk about everything related to heavy metal and chemical toxicity, health issues caused by toxins, anti-aging, bioenergetics, and more advanced topics in health than you’ll find on other podcasts. Today, we’re gonna be talking with Dr. Eric Osansky all about thyroid disease, Graves’ disease and thyroid-disrupting chemicals in heavy metals and give you a lot of solutions to repair and heal your thyroid as well. On this show, we’re gonna be talking about how most thyroid conditions are autoimmune in nature and require addressing the immune system and gut health, not just the thyroid.
We discussed the four types of thyroid dysfunction and what those labs would look like. We talk about how heavy metals, mainly mercury, but also lead in cadmium and indirectly aluminum, can disrupt thyroid function and thyroid hormone production. We talk about how chemicals like BPA phthalates, flame retardants found in mattresses, and microplastics disrupt the whole endocrine system, not just the thyroid. They bind to thyroid receptors as well. We talk about halogens like fluoride. chlorine and bromine compete with iodine uptake in the thyroid and interfere in thyroid hormone production. We talk about iodine deficiency and how to replete your iodine, and lots of tips on when, why, and how to take iodine as well.
We discuss natural treatment approaches like diet, stress reduction, detoxification, gut healing, nutrient support, and herbal remedies. We discuss pitfalls in thyroid medication and recommendations from conventional medical doctors. We also talk about testing, what tests that you need to request from your medical doctor, ’cause usually they’ll just do the super basic tests. They’re not gonna do a comprehensive panel, including antibodies that you need to find out if you have autoimmune thyroid issues, which is the most common form of thyroid issues. We also talk about pitfalls and medications, including how most people recommended T4 only, but that is not enough for most people. We discuss why they also need T3, and how to work with your practitioner to determine the optimal approach and dosing of your medication. So, lots of really, really key info in this show. If you’re looking to heal your thyroid, you’re looking to improve what you’re doing already with your medication management, maybe look at sub glandulars and just have a lot of questions, check out the show. It’s really, really good.
Our guest today, Dr. Eric Osansky, is a chiropractor, clinical nutritionist, and certified functional medicine practitioner who’s helped many people with thyroid and autoimmune thyroid conditions since 2009. He’s the author of several books, such as Natural Treatment Solutions for Hyperthyroidism and Graves’ Disease, and The Hyperthyroid Healing Diet, and Hashimoto’s Triggers. He’s the host of the Save My Thyroid Podcast and the creator of the Healthy Gut Healthy Thyroid Newsletter. Dr. Osansky was personally diagnosed with Graves’ disease and after seeing how well a natural treatment approach helped with his condition, he began helping others with thyroid and autoimmune thyroid conditions. You can learn more about his work at savemythyroid.com. Dr. Osansky, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Dr. Eric Osansky
Thank you so much, Wendy. Great to be here. Thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Wendy Myers
I really wanted to have you come on to talk about toxins that affect the thyroid because I personally believe after all the research I’ve done, that toxins, heavy metals, chemicals are one of the main things that interfere in thyroid function. I really wanted to do a deep dive on that with you. Why don’t you talk about what your background is and how you got into the health field?
Dr. Eric Osansky
My background’s a chiropractor. I was practicing traditional chiropractic for about seven and a half years, and was diagnosed with hyperthyroidism kind of outta the blue and eventually got the diagnosis of Graves’ disease. When I was diagnosed, I really didn’t have much experience with thyroid conditions, let alone Graves’. What I did as a chiropractor, when I took my continuing education credits, I always took nutritional seminars. And so I did take a few functional endocrinology seminars, and of course, they focused more on Hashimoto’s, since that’s more common.
But they did mention a little bit about Graves’ and natural symptom management, natural treatment options. So, when I was diagnosed, I knew I was gonna at least try it to take a natural approach. I didn’t know if it would be effective at all. But long story short, I made dietary changes, did some functional medicine, testing changed, took some supplements and I was able to restore my health, avoid the medication, avoid the surgery, and radioactive iodine that’s commonly recommended to Graves’ patients. And since 2009, I’ve been helping other people with thyroid and autoimmune thyroid conditions.
Dr. Wendy Myers
It just really makes me so sad when I hear people removing their thyroid, because that’s the common recommendation for Graves’ disease, which just seems completely insane to me. And then those people suffer the consequences of that. Tell us the difference between Hashimoto’s and Graves’, which is hyperthyroid and just plain hypothyroidism, which most people deal with.
Dr. Eric Osansky
In order to understand the difference, we gotta talk about the thyroid hormones. The main thyroid hormones are free T3 and T4. There’s in the free form and the bound form. But, the thyroid gland produces mostly T4 and a little bit of T3 but mostly T4, which converts into T3 and T3 is the active form of thyroid hormone that binds to the receptors. And we also have what’s called TSH, which is a thyroid stimulating hormone. That’s secreted by the pituitary gland. It communicates with the thyroid gland to tell it to either secrete more thyroid hormone or less thyroid hormone. So in the case of hypothyroidism, we have lower thyroid hormone. T3 and T4 will typically be on the lower side, and as a result, TSH will be on the higher side because the pituitary gland is pumping out more TSH to communicate with the thyroid gland to produce more thyroid hormone.
With hyperthyroidism, we have the opposite. We have too much thyroid hormone, too much T4 and T3. As a result, you’ll have lower amounts of TSH, a lot of times undetectable TSH because the pituitary is trying to tell the thyroid gland, we don’t need anymore thyroid hormone. Most thyroid conditions are autoimmune. So most hypothyroid conditions are Hashimoto’s. Most people have hyperthyroid Graves’ disease and they involve different auto antibodies. So with Hashimoto’s, they typically get thyroglobulin antibodies and thyroglobulins are a part of the thyroid gland. So that’s when you have those antibodies and that means the immune system is damaging the thyroid gland or potentially can damage thyroglobulin, which isn’t a good thing. It leads to hypothyroidism.
Thyroid peroxidase is an enzyme that is important in the production of thyroid hormone. He could have thyroid peroxidase antibodies or TPO antibodies, and that also can lead to hypothyroidism. And then there’s a thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins, or TSI, which are the antibodies associated with Graves’ disease. They’re more stimulatory, so they bind to the TSH receptors and cause the excess secretion of thyroid hormone. So with Graves’, you’ll get the elevation in thyroid hormone, the lower TSH, and typically the elevated thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins. Whereas with Hashimoto’s, you’ll get the elevated TSH, the lower thyroid hormones, and then, either you might get both the thyroglobulin and the thyroid peroxidase antibodies elevated. Sometimes you only get one of those. It’s also worth mentioning that sometimes people have all three antibodies. You could have a combination of graves and Hashimoto’s antibodies.
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Dr. Wendy Myers
I wanna talk, maybe towards the end of the show about a thyroid medication and all that stuff. Everyone listening, I want to go over some of the symptoms to look for, because I think for some people, their doctors don’t test their thyroid on a regular basis. You literally have to ask for that to be done. And then when they do test it, they don’t test the whole panel, like all these different things that need to be measured. They don’t test those, they don’t test the antibodies unless you specifically ask for it. These symptoms that we’re gonna go over in a second can be so many other things. And it’s interesting ’cause my first husband was always so anxious all the time about everything and then flipping out about little things.
I always thought, why can’t you just calm down? And then later he got a diagnosis of Graves’ disease and I’m like, wow, okay. That explains it. That explains why he could just never relax and always had anxiety about so many different things. And it destroyed our marriage. To be honest with you, I don’t like being around anxious people ’cause then it makes you anxious. But, he ended up getting it fixed through bioenergetics. He fixed it. That’s a whole podcast all by itself. I’m not gonna go into that.
So, why don’t we talk about some of these symptoms that people can have with each of these conditions that should prompt them to go into tests with their doctor, especially if in your forties or fifties and something’s just not quite right. I encourage all women and men too, go get tested so you can just rule this out and get on some hormones if you need them.
Dr. Eric Osansky
I definitely agree with you, Dr. Wendy on the testing too. Unfortunately, like you said, most doctors don’t. They just do a basic TSH and T4. That’s also important to mention. But yeah, the symptoms with hypothyroidism, typically you’ll get fatigue, you’ll get weight gain, coldness is common, and brittle hair. Again, everything’s like slowing down. Constipation is another common symptom and depression. Hyperthyroidism is everything increased. So that’s why, like you mentioned, your ex-husband had anxiety, which is pretty common. I had an elevated resting heart rate.
I didn’t tell the entire story, but that’s how I knew something was up. I just randomly one day took my blood pressure, which was fine, but my resting heart rate was 90. And then the next few days, it was anywhere between like 90 and 110 beats per minute. So elevated resting heart rate, palpitations are common with hyperthyroidism, and insomnia. I mentioned brittle hair with Hashimoto’s or hypothyroidism. Hair loss is very common with hyperthyroidism, heat intolerance, and looser stools. It’s not so much what hyperthyroidism, but what a lot of people have what’s called thyroid eye disease, where the same antibodies that attack the TSH receptors also can attack the tissues of the eyes and lead to swelling, bulging, and double vision.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Anyone you see with the bulging eyes, that’s classic Graves’ disease.
Dr. Eric Osansky
Those are some of the more common symptoms. Sometimes people don’t have the classic symptoms. Sometimes you’ll see people with hyperthyroidism gain weight even without taking the antithyroid medication. But for the most part those are like the more classic symptoms of hypo and hyper
Dr. Wendy Myers
Did you mention weight gain also with hypothyroidism?
Dr. Eric Osansky
Yes
Dr. Wendy Myers
That’s really common. If you can’t lose weight no matter what you’re doing, check your thyroid ’cause that’s gonna be one of the main contributors. I also recently interviewed Dr. Josh Axe, and he had some really interesting statistics where he said that if you had been on the pill at any point in your life, which I was on it for like 20 years, that you have something like 200 plus percent increase in thyroid issues and hypothyroidism. That rang a lot of bells. So anyone that you’ve been on the birth control pill for an extended period of time, it has consequences for the thyroid, unfortunately.
Why don’t we talk about the role of toxins affecting the thyroid, because I think no one is really talking about this. I’ve written a number of articles on this. I have an article if you guys wanna do a deep dive, on how heavy metals affect the thyroid and another article on how chemicals affect the thyroid with 180 research citations on that. It’s very thorough. Why don’t we start with the heavy metals that affect the thyroid?
Dr. Eric Osansky
We might as well start with Mercury. Mercury has been shown in the research to directly affect thyroid and affect the immune system. It’s important to mention what these chemicals that we’re gonna be talking about, is that it’s not just the impact on the thyroid. A lot of studies do show a direct impact on the thyroid, but a lot of these chemicals also affect the immune system and the gut microbiome. And most of the immune system cells are in the gut. Mercury is toxic to the thyroid. It can disrupt the thyroid gland causing hypothyroidism. A lot of people don’t realize that it can affect the gut microbiome. So when I did my own deep dive into Mercury, it also can cause dysbiosis that can affect the intestinal barrier, and we know that that could be a factor with autoimmune conditions, including Graves’ and Hashimoto’s.
It has other effects just causing dysregulation of the immune system, even without affecting the gut microbiome. You wanna do everything you can to minimize exposure to mercury. I’m sure you spoke about that in great detail elsewhere, so I don’t know if you want to touch upon sources, such as mercury amalgams that some people have and even the methyl mercury from fish can also be a factor, especially if you eat a lot of larger fish like sword fish, for example. I would say mercury is number one as far as the research when it comes to thyroid health. Lead and cadmium also affect the thyroid and immune system. Now aluminum, I haven’t seen anything directly affecting thyroid, but it does affect the immune system.
It’s used as an adjuvant for vaccines. It definitely can in some cases potentially exacerbate autoimmunity, which, again, most power conditions are autoimmune in nature. Heavy metals are one of those things where we’re not going to completely eliminate our exposure. That’s obviously with everything we’ll talk about like the xeno estrogens, I’m sure we’ll talk about and flow. We’ll get into whatever you wanted to talk about. But, just trying our best to minimize exposure to all these environmental toxins and just realizing that we’re not gonna completely eliminate our exposure. I’m sure you have all different resources as far as how to detoxify things like sauna therapy that could be beneficial.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Mercury is probably one of the top things that interfere in thyroid functioning. Who doesn’t have mercury fillings or that’s listening or hasn’t had them at one time? I removed all mine. I had five or six that I removed with a regular dentist when I was 21. I just got flooded with so much mercury. I’m sure it just destroyed my thyroid in that one dental visit, but the mercury will interfere in the thyroid globulin production and the conversion of T4 to T3, and it can get into the thyroid. And then you develop these antibodies to mercury actually, and then that starts destroying thyroid tissue.
People don’t really think about sensitivities or allergies to mercury that can cause problems in mercury deposits and a lot of different glands and organs in the body that can be affected, including the thyroid. The lead is also in everything. Lead is in all of our soil, it’s in our food, it’s in our supplements. We’re breathing it in the air. It’s all the particles from tires. Those are all made of lead as well. So there’s just a lot of exposure to lead in our environment.
In the cadmium, we get that from smoking secondhand marijuana smoke and large fish as well. There are a lot of different sources of cadmium and fertilizers, even organic fertilizers and all the miracle grow. All that crop is from Morocco and it’s full of cadmium, all of it. It’s even used on organic produce as well. So there’s just a lot of these heavy metals in our environment that we’re getting in our air, food, and water that devastate our thyroid. And that’s why so many millions of people have thyroid issues today. Let’s talk about the chemicals.
Dr. Eric Osansky
Can I say one more thing? You mentioned cigarette smoking. There’s a number of studies, I’m not sure if it’s related to the cadmium, ’cause there’s other things in cigarettes when smoking cigarettes, but in the research there’s a relationship between cigarette smoking and Graves’, and cigarette smoking and thyroid eye disease. I wanted to bring that up because again, if anybody, hopefully nobody listening to this is smoking, we don’t see it as common as a few decades ago. But I still have some patients that every now and then they’ll be smoking and have Graves’ and have thyroid eye disease. The first thing you need to do is cut out cigarette smoking.
Dr. Wendy Myers
But it’s interesting, I’ve tested thousands of clients and even the ones that only smoked for a year, 20 or 30 years ago, still have that cadmium in their body. That’s because it’s not easy to release this stuff. That’s just a note to self. If you have smoked at any point in time, that cadmium needs to be addressed.
Dr. Eric Osansky
Yeah, good point.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Let’s go to the chemicals. Tell us what chemicals affect the thyroid.
Dr. Eric Osansky
The xenoestrogens are the big category of endocrine disrupting chemicals. When we talk about xenoestrogens, we’ll talk about Bisphenol A or BPA. We’ll talk about phthalates, we’ll talk about flame retardants, PBDEs. We refer to the term now, we’re hearing about microplastics, which are pretty much everything I just mentioned and they’re everywhere. We can’t escape no matter how much we try. It doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. You want to try to do your best when going shopping and whatever you do, just try to minimize the plastic exposure. But it’s everywhere. You said you wrote an article. There’s no shortage of studies showing that these are endocrine-disrupting chemicals. So it’s not just the thyroid, but they mimic our natural estrogen.
They bind into the estrogen receptors, but they also disrupt the androgen and thyroid receptors. Then some people with the BPA as you know, they’ll go to the BPA free water bottles. But then there’s BPS and BPF, which are structural analogs that are just as bad, if not worse than BPA. They directly affect thyroid function. That typically results in more hypothyroidism than hyperthyroidism, but they also affect the immune system. They disrupt the gut microbiome. And again, that could be a factor in autoimmune conditions such as Graves’ and Hashimoto’s.
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Dr. Wendy Myers
These chemicals you mentioned are just everywhere. It’s almost impossible unless I had a building biologist on the show, unless you build your own house and you have all organic furniture and you’re eating all organic food, you’re still gonna be exposed. ’cause the number of exposure is in the air. And so that’s where a lot of people are getting this stuff. And then the shower water. It’s just very difficult. That’s why I do this show to educate you guys and you just gotta do daily detox. That’s all you can do.
Dr. Eric Osansky
I was gonna say even things like sea salts, I can’t say I completely have given up my sea salt, but there’s microplastics potentially in the sea salt. So you’re right. You can’t escape. We’re not suggesting you go out and buy all natural furniture, but one thing I’ll say is for those who are in the market for a mattress, at the very least get a natural mattress ’cause all furniture, if it’s not natural, typically has flame retardants.
But since you’re spending 6, 7, 8, hopefully at least 7, 8 hours in your bed, and those flame retardants also in the research have been shown to disrupt the thyroid gland to bind into the receptor and affect the immune system. I would say, next time you get a mattress again, I’m not gonna say run out right now and get a natural mattress, but maybe look into one in the future.
Dr. Wendy Myers
That’s so important. That’s such a good point too. Let’s talk about some other halogens. There’s halogen like fluoride, bromines and bromides that displace iodine in the thyroid. The thyroid will take those up instead of iodine, ’cause most people are deficient in iodine. And that’s what all of our thyroid hormones are made of. T4 is four molecules of iodine. T3 is three molecules of iodine. So if you don’t have any iodine, which you probably don’t in your diet, and you’re not supplementing with it, how do you expect to make your thyroid hormones? And then on top of that, throwing all these highlights, which are the fluoride and the bromines and there’s one other one. We have a healthy influx of those from our fluoridation of the water, which hopefully RFK Junior is going to stop that. I’m praying every day that that happens ’cause that’s so devastating to our thyroid. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Dr. Eric Osansky
You’re absolutely right on fluoride, bromide, and chlorine in the water. I use reverse osmosis just to make sure it’s, there are other ways, but just trying to avoid drinking it. I’m sure you don’t use a toothpaste with fluoride either. Some people minimize that. Oh, we’re not gonna swallow the toothpaste, but you probably will swallow a little bit of it and still you don’t want any fluoride in my opinion. It’s a neurotoxin besides the impact that it has on the thyroid. Fluoride is a big one. You mentioned bromide in bread, conditioners, and then chlorine is everywhere. It’s not just about obviously drinking your water, but also bathing too, which I don’t know if you found a good solution for the fluoride.
I have a chloride filter. It gets out the chlorine and some other things, but it’s probably not getting rid of the fluoride. I don’t know of a shower filter that gets rid of fluoride. Maybe you do, but again, it’s all about trying our best and minimizing our exposure and like you said, they compete with iodine. That’s one way. Besides that, like I said, it’s a neurotox, it has other harmful effects. By displacing iodine it makes it very difficult for the body to reduce thyroid hormone. That’s why it’s considered another disruptor.
Dr. Wendy Myers
The best solution is supplementing with iodine. I take activation products, perfect iodine, and I also take LOLs, which I will rub on my skin. They’re different types of iodine but those are very potent ways to get the iodine that you need. Like you mentioned, fish has mercury. It’s maybe the small fish, little gross fish that nobody’s eating. Not everyone’s eating sardines, anchos and things like that. I love them, but still, I don’t eat them enough. Most people are getting cautious about large fish, maybe not eating sushi as much because those larger migratory fish are gonna have mercury.
I still advocate eating fish because of their nutrient profile and the Omega-3s. I’m still a big fish fan. I think you just need to detox and take things that will detox that mercury and cadmium in them and nickel and things like that, or just enjoy them seldomly, not that much. Most people are not eating enough iodine, so you have to supplement with it. What is your take on that, because I know some people say Hashimoto’s don’t take iodine?
Dr. Eric Osansky
I’m definitely more pro iodine than against iodine, but I will say I’ve been a little bit more cautious over the years when it comes to iodine, so I agree with you. Iodine’s an important mineral and you don’t want to restrict it. There’s some like saying that you wanna do the opposite and like iodine in a multivitamin you want to avoid and like food sources. So I’m definitely not on the bandwagon with that. I agree that when it comes to the hali, that is a good strategy. If you’re familiar with haka labs, you could test for iodine, but you could also look at the halos. That is a good strategy to help with elevated bromide or elevated fluoride.
In addition to trying to obviously minimize the exposure by not using fluoride toothpaste and using a filter that filters out the fluoride too. When I dealt with Graves’, I did fine with iodine. I took potassium iodine tablets. I did perfectly fine. And as a result I would recommend iodine testing for everybody. Most people, like you said, showed up as being deficient. So I would recommend iodine. And then, there are some people I noticed that just can’t, I don’t wanna say tolerate, like when someone says I’m allergic to iodine, you can’t really be allergic to minerals. At least that’s my perspective. There’s something else going on. Antioxidants are important too. What we gotta think about when someone’s not doing well with iodine too, if they’re not taking selenium, which is important to take what iodine ’cause it does cause an oxidation reaction when you take iodine.
So you need selenium, you need healthy antioxidants. There are some people that seem to not do well with iodine. Many times there’s a reason, sometimes it’s a little bit of, even when they’re taking selenium, it seems like okay, they’re not doing well, and maybe we should address other things first and then get back to that later. But, it’s definitely one of the more controversial topics in thyroid health.
Dr. Wendy Myers
I talked to many people about this, many medical doctors and people that I really trust, like Dr. Brownstein and other doctors. It is a simple fact. You don’t make thyroid hormones without iodine. If you’re deficient, you are not going to be able to make thyroid hormones, which is the goal. I think people have to start very slow. They could even start at the tiniest little dose and work their way up. I don’t believe iodized table salt is the way to go. I think I see stuff like that on social media and you do not wanna be eating table salt. I think that is the worst thing in the world for you, it’s 80% sodium. And so we don’t need any more sodium. We need 80 to 100 minerals in that spectrum. That’s in sea salt. And so I don’t care about iodized sea salts. I don’t think so.
We’re having an iodine deficiency epidemic because people are switching from table salt to sea salt. You need to be aware of that and supplement with iodine and start with very, very low doses and titrate your way up. When you take minerals like iodine, it is going to push out halides. You’re gonna start detoxing halides. When you start revving up your thyroid, you’re gonna start detoxing better just in general and it’s gonna cause symptoms. So it may not be the iodine per se, but the positive effects it’s having on people, which they may not like those detox symptoms. That’s my opinion.
Dr. Eric Osansky
That’s a good point with the detox symptoms. Quick question, do you do urinary iodine testing or do you just pretty much put people on iodine supplements?
Dr. Wendy Myers
We have done haka labs on people. Most people are iodine deficient, I just don’t like to do a ton of testing on people and spend money on that. So I’ll just put some people on iodine and just see how they do and then start titrating up from there. Let’s talk about chlorine, because chlorine is also in most people’s water, and they’re also showering in that they’re swimming in pools or going in jacuzzi. Can you talk about the problems with that?
Dr. Eric Osansky
It’s just another hali that negatively affects thyroid function and also negatively affects our health in other ways. And so you just want some of the same approaches with fluoride. Again, make sure you drink purified water. We should also mention. It goes without saying when we say purified water, not like water out of plastic bottles ’cause then you’re getting exposed to those xeno estrogens that we spoke about before. Filter your own water or buy something like Mountain Valley Springs out of a glass bottle. But try to avoid the fluoride and what you drink. Again, I mentioned how I have a shower filter. A lot of the whole house filters are not gonna, as far as I know, get rid of the fluoride, but they will get rid of the chloride.
That’s a very good question about the pools. I get this question from time to time, like, should I swim in pools with chlorine and jacuzzis and all that. I would say, if it’s every now and then, it’s probably not a big deal. I don’t know if they’re on vacation and there’s like a chlorinated pool. It’s all ultimately up to the person. I try to not go in chlorinated pools as much as I can, but again, on an every day, day in, day out basis, if someone has a pool in their backyard that’s chlorinated, can it potentially affect thyroid function or overall health?
In my opinion, yeah. Everybody’s different. We all have a different toxic burden. You want to try to keep it as low as you can, in my opinion. So, again, like I said, I’m not too concerned if someone is swimming in a chlorinated poll a few times a year, but if they’re doing it on a regular basis, then I think it could be a concern.
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Dr. Wendy Myers
Let’s talk about how to heal the thyroid naturally. Maybe let’s start with Graves’ disease. How did you go about addressing your Graves’ successfully?
Dr. Eric Osansky
Yeah, great question. Diet and lifestyle were a piece of the puzzle, just trying to eat whole healthy foods, minimize refined foods and sugars, the unhealthy oils, and try to stick with things like olive oil, coconut oil, avocado oil, and purified water as we discussed here. Adrenal health was big. Stress was a big factor. I know in my Graves’ disease condition, just not just the emotional stressors, but I was over training, which I should have known better, but I didn’t listen to my body and I’m sure that was a factor. I did an adrenal saliva test and pretty much everything was in the tank.
I had low cortisol, low DHEA, low secretary IGA. That was a big part of my healing journey. It is just not stopping completely exercise, but definitely toning down and, and not overdoing it. I thought I was good at handling stress, which I realized by looking at my adrenal results, that I wasn’t as good as I thought I was. So, adrenals were a big factor. The gut, most people, if not everybody, there’s that what’s called that three-legged stool of autoimmunity. What of those legs is that increase in intestinal permeability? That leaky gut?
Dr. Wendy Myers
What I love about that is BPC 1 57. I think it’s one of the most unbelievable things, peptides heal the gut really, really quickly. I think that’s, but also doing things to not destroy your gut, like taking NSAID, Tylenol and things like. That is problematic. Let’s talk about gluten and dairy ’cause that’s a big issue as well for those with the Hashimoto’s and autoimmune. Can you talk about that?
Dr. Eric Osansky
It’s important to remove the factors that can cause the leaky gut that can negatively affect the immune system. Gluten and dairy are two common food allergens that I recommend for everybody to avoid at least while healing. Definitely gluten, I would say it’s a good idea, probably. Some people will reintroduce it, but at least while healing, take a break from gluten, take a break from dairy while healing. I recommend taking a break from grains. If someone doesn’t want to take a break from grains, at least like corn and some of the more harsh grains.
Some people will say, well, I feel fine when I eat gluten. And it’s not just about how you feel, even if you don’t have something like celiac disease. Research shows that gluten affects the gut in everybody. It can increase permeability of the gut even if they’re not experiencing symptoms. So it’s really difficult to heal the gut if you’re continuing to eat gluten. Others will say, well, maybe it’s more of a glyphosate problem, which is another toxin that we haven’t covered yet. I think glyphosate is also an issue without question that affects the gut microbiome. I avoided gluten and dairy during my healing journey when I dealt with Graves’. It’s something that I recommend for pretty much all my patients to do.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Glyphosate is pretty much in all food if it’s not organic. It’s pretty much guaranteed it’s just sprayed on everything. It’s a weed killer herbicide and it’s an antibiotic. It kills all your gut bacteria and blocks absorption of minerals, destroys your gut lining and causes leaky gut and leaky brain, and a lot of problems. So just going organic and not a hundred percent, but for the most part, at least you can factor out the glyphosate for the most part in your diet. I don’t think people have to forever have to go off gluten and dairy. They just need to get to the point where they’re healed and then maybe after that you can have some organic or raw dairy and, and organic bread products and things like that or non-gluten grains probably. But everyone’s different.
Dr. Eric Osansky
I can’t say I completely avoid dairy now that I’ve been in a state of wellness. Gluten, I do try to minimize. I can’t say that I’ve been in remission for over 15 years now. I can’t say like, I haven’t had gluten exposure since then. It is something I try to minimize. But you are right. If someone is going to eat gluten, eat Ezekiel bread compared to whatever, I dunno if they saw Wonder Bread and things like that, that is nature’s own. But yeah, you could stick with the ancient grains and healthier forms of the sprouted wheat, if you are gonna eat it in the future.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Or the fermented, eating organic sourdough. A lot of the gluten proteins have been broken down if it’s properly fermented for a few days. The sourdough can be okay too, not the commercial crap in the grocery store. I’m talking about a real baker that IS fermenting it properly. That breaks down a lot of the gluten too. Pasta, also a lot of the gluten is broken down as well. But everyone’s different, like I said. It’s important where you source everything. Back to Graves’, what are some of the other things you did to heal? Any supplements or your medication or how did you go about that?
Dr. Eric Osansky
I was able to avoid the antithyroid medication. I took herbs, bugleweed, which is an antithyroid herb. I took that instead of the typical in the United States, menthol is recommended. That worked great for me. It doesn’t work for everybody, but I’d say like 70, 75% of the time it will help where someone doesn’t need the antithyroid meds. And then motherwort, it’s kinda like a natural beta blocker. I took the bugleweed, I took the motherwort. Some people take lemon balm as well, which I didn’t take, but lemon balm has a calming effect. I took those from a symptom management perspective.
I did take some adrenal support supplements. I took licorice root for my low cortisol levels. I took adrenal glandular, took some B vitamins and took some supplements for the gut. I took probiotics, I took fish oil. But everybody’s different, so it depends. If we do a comprehensive stool test and someone has H pylori,which I didn’t have, but some people do have, and there’s a relationship between H Pylori and Graves’ as well as Hashimoto’ s, I’ll put someone on a herbal protocol to help with H pylori. If someone has problems with estrogen metabolism, then we might give them something like dim or sulforaphane, depending on the situation.
So it really depends on the situation. There are like bases, like, I can’t say I give licorice root to everybody ’cause if someone has high blood pressure or if their cortisol levels are high, you wouldn’t want to give licorice root. But certain things like probiotics, fish oils, I’m commonly giving to those are more to me general supplements. But what I recommend is doing some functional medicine testing, like you said, within reason. I’m not one that says let’s do like $2,000 worth of functional medicine testing. It really depends on the health history. So I do give some general support, but then depending on what comes up in the health history, I might do some testing to try to find some of the triggers and then based on what we find, give some recommendations on that as well.
Dr. Wendy Myers
And that’s why it’s so important to go to someone that’s doing functional medicine because all these tests you’re talking about, conventional doctors are not going to do them. They may not even know what they are, much less run these kinds of tests and mainly ’cause a lot of ’em may not be covered by insurance as well. I think it’s really important to get to the root cause of your health issue so you can actually address it successfully and maybe get rid of it forever. I think once people get on thyroid hormones, they probably need to be on them for life. Thyroid hormones are not like other medications. We need them. We absolutely need them. So I don’t think anyone should feel bad about having to be on this medication or if they need to get off or anything like that. These are needed for so many different things, not just for our thyroid, but they’re needed for so many other functions in our body as well.
Let’s talk about Hashimoto’s first because that’s an extremely common autoimmune thyroid condition. How does someone go about addressing that naturally and through functional medicine?
Dr. Eric Osansky
Honestly, there’s a lot of similarities between addressing Hashimoto’s and Graves’ that the big difference is what you just mentioned. Typically with Hashimoto’s, if not everybody, but it’s not uncommon to need thyroid hormone replacements if you’re thyroid hormones on the lower side. A lot of people actually are subclinically hypothyroid, so they’re thyroid is within the lab range, but less than optimal. Some of those people might still need thyroid hormone. Some of those might not need thyroid hormone when it’s well below the reference range. They’re more likely to need thyroid hormone. But symptom management, definitely that’s the big difference with Graves’. It’s antithyroid medication or I mentioned the herbs, bugleweed and motherwort for example.
But it really comes down to finding removing triggers. I talk about like four categories of triggers, like food, stress, chemicals, infections, and what I have a book Hashimoto’s Triggers and I could easily have crossed out Hashimoto’s and put Graves’ Disease Triggers and probably like 80% of the information in that book would also benefit those with Graves’. So, just to what we spoke about with the gluten and the dairy at least while healing to try to avoid those foods. I go even further than that with not everybody. There’s no perfect diet that fits everybody, but for a lot of people, I put them on an elimination type diet, like an autoimmune protocol type diet.
Again, temporary just while, and not even necessarily the entire time while healing, maybe just for a few months and then have them reintroduce foods. But then I stress trying to do things to reduce the stressors, both emotional, physical stressors, even past traumas, could be a factor. We spoke about the chemicals and trying to reduce our toxic burden. These days I do things that I didn’t do. I didn’t do sauna when I dealt with Graves’, so I can’t say everybody needs sauna therapy. I do saunas like two or three times a week. For both Graves’ and Hashimoto’s, trying to reduce your toxic burden, infections like viruses, bacteria, parasites could all be potential triggers. And sometimes you might need to do testing, sometimes maybe not. Toxic mold is a factor with a lot of people too.
So, again, I wish it was an easy like blueprint and just say these are the steps someone has to follow. But it really does come down to diet and lifestyle are definitely important pieces of the puzzle. So everybody listening to this can start with diet and lifestyle. Clean up their diet, minimize the stressors or improve their stress handling. Make sure you’re getting sufficient sleep or at least work on that. I know sometimes that’s easier said than done. In addition to that, maybe you don’t need to do testing, but I find that it’s common for people to need to dig deeper with, like I said, within reason.
At least start out with some conservative testing. See what we find. Sometimes when I dealt with Graves’, I can’t say I did a lot of testing. I’d be a hypocrite if I said, okay, everybody has to get like five or six tests. I got my adrenal test, did a hair mineral analysis test, did some blood testing, and that was all the testing that I needed. If you’re dealing with Graves’ change the diet, find some of the other triggers, the correct nutrient deficiencies, heal the gut, healthy gut, healthy immune system. I can’t stress how important that is. In a nutshell, that’s it.
And then like I said, symptom management. Getting back to that, you want to be safe while addressing the cost of a problem. So what you said earlier is important. There are some people that are really resistant to taking anything. Like in the case of Hashimoto’s, they might not want to take thyroid hormone. And you’re right. A lot of people when they take it, they’re on it long term. Again, some, not everybody, some people are able to get off of it, but like you said, I don’t look at it as a medication. It’s a replacement
Dr. Wendy Myers
It’s a hormone replacement. If you need it, you need it. If you’re not making it, you have to take it. It’s not like a typical medication where you’re masking symptoms or anything like that. Your body needs it. You’re not gonna feel good.
Dr. Eric Osansky
I was just gonna say, Graves’, on the other hand, you don’t wanna stay on the antithyroid medication long-term. That’s a typical medication and has been shown methimazole, PTU, which are commonly given in hyperthyroidism that will disrupt the gut. Again, time and place for it, just like there’s a time and place for antibiotics. But, you also want to be safe when dealing with Graves’ too, because you could get into a thyroid storm situation, which is an emergency situation. So with both Graves’ and Hashimoto’s, as you mentioned, you want to address the cause of the problem, but you want to be safe while doing that.
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Dr. Wendy Myers
I really feel like the diet you’re talking about is a paleo type diet. So doing an organic paleo type diet, getting rid of the industrial seed oils for the most part is gonna solve a lot of problems downstream for sure. And then as far as thyroid medication and glandulars, let’s pick that apart a little bit. I definitely take glandulars. I think it’s really important those are bovine glandulars from pigs, ’cause they are thyroid matches. Ours are very, very similar. And this has been taken for a hundred years safely and they feed all the nutrition as well that your thyroid needs, which is really important. You don’t just need thyroid hormones, you need all the nutrients that your thyroid needs to function and to make hormones and convert them to various hormones like T4 to T3, et cetera. You need selenium for that.
Like you mentioned, you need iodine and there’s other things as well. And so those are all in the ular. I think the only drawback is you don’t have the exact dosing of the T4 or T3. They also have T2and T1 in them. It’s kind of a crapshoot. You don’t really know exactly what you’re getting or the right dosage, but I take them for that nutritional component to feed my thyroid. What’s your take on them?
Dr. Eric Osansky
I agree.I like him. I can’t say I’m a huge fan of just someone taking synthetic T4, which is commonly given. And again, there are people listening to this and they might be doing fine taking something like Synthroid, for example. But given the choice, I would rather take a desiccated thyroid, not adrenal gland. Adrenal glandular is another story, but yeah, like thyroid, glandulars, or you could take a prescription glandular such as armor or NP thyroid, but then there are ones that you could get on your own, like thyroid Gold is like a brand that is out there. And like you said, it has other things in there too. The nutritional value, the T1, the T2, the calcitonin. I agree with you. I do like them.
Dr. Wendy Myers
I think there’s also a big problem with the T4 medication, like Synthroid, that’s the name brand. When you have mercury toxicity, which a lot of people do, especially that they have thyroid issues, it interferes in that conversion of T4 to the active form T3. So you could be taking that and your body can’t convert it to T3 because of mercury toxicity, and you don’t really have to have a ton of mercury or like to be super toxic in it to have these conversion issues. I think it’s better if you’re gonna take medicine to add T3 to it as well. That’s really warranted and that’s something that a lot of conventional doctors aren’t really factoring in.
I know when I was taking T4 for a long time and I switched to T3, my brain completely turned on. It was unbelievable. And it was unmistakably from the T3. And I saw after that I was definitely sold on, doing the T3 alone or the T4 and T3
Dr. Eric Osansky
I agree. That’s a great point with the conversion, and it’s not just mercury, there are others, even high prolonged cortisol can affect T4 to T3 conversion, so you’re right.
If someone is just taking Synthroid or again, just generic levothyroxine, then it’s very common to see where maybe T4 looks good on a thyroid panel, but if it would it tests for T3 might be on the lower side. So you wanna try to affect that conversion, like improve that conversion by reducing mercury and addressing other factors. But, I agree. A lot of people do a lot better with adding T3.
Dr. Wendy Myers
I had for a long period taken a thyroid medication. I started having health issues when I was 37, and they said I had really low thyroid function, so I got on thyroid medicine. I switched to glandulars, and then I was taking way too many of them, way too stimulated, affecting my sleep. For over a period I got off of them. But then I recently have gotten back on thyroid medication because I’m in menopause. Our glands just wear out. At some point they’re not cooperating how they’re supposed to cooperate. So I’ve definitely gotten back on T3 and glandulars and that normalizes my thyroid tests. It works for me. I would love to be in a world where we could do everything, live a healthy lifestyle and eat a perfect diet, and everything’s working just fine. I think there’s just a lot of chemicals and heavy metals affecting our various gland functions. That’s just the reality we live in today.
So we need to, especially women in menopause, men in andropause, I think we have to do a lot of hormone replacement, not just thyroid hormones, but sex hormones and other things that were creatine and collagen and everything’s going out the window. So we gotta just replace all those things that we’re no longer able to produce, unfortunately.
Dr. Eric Osansky
I definitely agree.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Why don’t you tell us about your book that you mentioned?
Dr. Eric Osansky
I actually have a few books. I have three thyroid related books, including Natural Treatment Solutions for Hyperthyroidism and Graves Disease, which is now in its third edition. I mentioned Hashimoto’s Triggers, which was released in 2018. My most recent book, The Hyperthyroid Healing Diet, which covers paleo principles. Those are my three thyroid related books, which you can get from Amazon.
Dr. Wendy Myers
And what is your website?
Dr. Eric Osansky
My website is savemythyroid.com
Dr. Wendy Myers
Okay, great. Go to savemythyroid.com. Do you still work with patients and obviously you’re testing and working one-on-one with patients as well?
Dr. Eric Osansky
I do, yes.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Okay, great. Go to savemythyroid.cm if you wanna fix your thyroid and get it back online and get your weight and your sleep normalized and feeling better, definitely go to Dr. Osansky’s website. Dr. Osansky, thanks so much for joining us today. Is there any parting thoughts or anything else that we haven’t talked about you wanna mention?
Dr. Eric Osansky
No, I think we covered a lot. Just remember that there is hope whether you have Graves’ disease, whether you have Hashimoto’s, most endocrinologists will focus on the thyroid gland, but it’s really more of an immune system condition and a thyroid condition. There are a lot of factors, but what we focused on today, the toxins and toxicants really can make a big difference. So definitely try to do everything you can to minimize your exposure to them.
Dr. Wendy Myers
Everyone get tested. Get your thyroid tested, please as early as possible. Test your thyroid hormones, your sex hormones, just test everything because the earlier you do it and start addressing it, the better off you’re gonna be going into your 40s, 50s, and 60s. Please, please, please. Again, thanks so much for coming on the show, Dr. Osansky. Everyone, I’m Dr. Wendy Myers. Thanks so much for tuning in every week to the Myers Detox podcast. I love doing podcasts like this on hormones and really push people to act when they see and relate their symptoms to the podcast or realize maybe they’re not doing everything they can or they’re not being guided correctly by their doctor to address underlying root causes. It really lights my fire to relay this information to you so that you can get the correct treatment that you need and get on the right path to enjoy the health that you deserve. So thanks for tuning in.
Disclaimer
The Myers Detox Podcast is created and hosted by Wendy Myers. This podcast is for information purposes only. Statements and views expressed on this podcast are not medical advice. This podcast, including Wendy Myers and the producers, disclaims responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. The opinions of guests are their own, and this podcast does not endorse or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. Individuals on this podcast may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to herein. If you think you have a medical problem, consult a licensed physician.
