Goitrogens, Hashimoto's, DAMPS damage signaling, gut dysbiosis and down regulation of the thyroid.
Dr. Kellman and his book The Whole Brain; and grammar gaffes.
Goitrogens are foods or substances that reduce thyroid function. They include cruciferous veggies like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and radish. Chemicals within in the veggies decrease thyroid hormone production and can reduce iodine uptake by the thyroid gland.
Other goitrogens include millet, sorghum, wheat, cassava (tapioca), and soy.
Cruciferous vegetables include: arugula, Bok choy, broccoli, broccoli rabe, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, collard greens, mustard greens, turnip root and greens, kale, radishes, and rutabagas.
Selenium foods include: Brazil nuts, fortified pasta and cereals, rice, egg whites, baked beans, oatmeal and spinach;
and foods rich in selenium and iodine include: tuna, halibut, shrimp, ham, egg yolks, and cottage cheese - from an article about foods to avoid with hyperthyroidism: (medicalnewstoday.com/articles/326275#foods-to-eat)
Alcohol is a thyroid negative:
Stress and gut dysbiosis are unrecognized causes of low thyroid function. Whether we are emotionally or physically stressed, that increased load on the body causes gut dysbiosis, and that can be a direct cause of downregulation of thyroid function according to Dr. Kellman in his book The Whole Brain. The DAMPS signaling - damage response signaling response can be generated due to tissue damage or oxidative stress from being overly stressed and frazzled. Thinking positively and focusing on feeling safe and warm and loved is telling our brain, body, and microbes that we/they/we all are safe and warm and loved and there is no need to signal for any inflammatory danger responses. . . which include down regulation of thyroid function.
*This topic is following an earlier post: Hashimoto's & DAMPS signaling - let's talk about Vitamin D and leaky gut. Also Cardiometabolic Protocol for microbiome support, with my Fullscript affiliate account. (Substack) < the Fullscript protocol includes a probiotic product that I mention later in this post. I have quite a few different probiotic products in that protocol but they all include different species so I did suggest rotating them as a possible budget approach to helping gut diversity. Chronic illness and autism tend to have lower variety of gut species than in normal health, AND, three different studies comparing Western populations with other groups found that we, our children, have much less gut biodiversity.
This means that gut dysbiosis, whether stress related or following chronic antibiotic use, could be a big factor in Hashimoto’s and other autoimmune related thyroid conditions. Iodine or other nutrients might not be needed as much as mellowing out your mind and eating differently.
The book The Whole Brain by Raphael Kellman, MD, (kellmancenter.com) is written as a guide for lay readers to help heal anxiety, depression and brain fog by healing gut dysbiosis and working on the emotional and physical factors that can add to our stress load.
Gut dysbiosis leads to leaky gut membranes which can increase protein entry into the blood stream where autoimmune antibodies against may occur. Those memory B cells then patrol the body looking for anything similar - which might include similar body proteins. Wheat gluten is similar to thyroid tissue.
Dr. Kellman provides a good introduction to the complex topic of our microbiome and how it can interact with our mood and our health. He stresses that our gut microbiome is part of us and part of our mood and thinking ability. The “Whole Brain” as he defines it, includes the brain and gut microbiome as a system that is part of each other. When our gut microbes are out of balance anxiety or compulsive behaviors might be a daily occurrence - but wouldn’t be our ‘norm’ if our gut was healthier. But when our brain is stressed or worried or fearful or angry, then our gut microbes worsen in health too. The gut-brain connection is a two-way street. The book has several chapters focused on community and visualization and how giving and receiving is a healthy part of life which many of us may lack.
FreedomLover shared in a comment on the recent “Eat dirt”? post, an article by Toby Rogers about the communal, shared aspects of our microbiome. We can share similar species with family members or coworkers we see regularly. This can be a good or a bad thing. Do you have healthy Terrain and energy or unhealthy Terrain and energy? Smiling and thinking positive thoughts seems to be good for our microbiome and the cohesion of our energy vibes.
The overall education on the microbiome and its connections with thyroid health and mental health is the main value of the book. The diet is reasonable with a focus on resistant starch but the need for zinc by the gut microbes wasn’t highlighted. Someone with gut issues who was sensitive to oxalate or histamine would have trouble with the ‘healthy’ foods that are suggested but that is an issue across much of the current popular guidance about diet. The what needs to be avoided - processed foods, seed oils, etc, is needed advice. Overall, it is a helpful book I would consider buying as a reference or giving someone. There is a helpful list of specific probiotic species to supplement with for different types of mental or physical symptoms.
The Whole Brain, by Raphael Kellman, MD, 2018, (kellmancenter.com) (*I listened to a library audiobook so I couldn’t flip back and forth at all.)
Dr. Kellman also stresses that the gut bacterial species are team players. As single celled organisms, they can’t do everything that helps their own survival on their own. They need each other to do the different things that the varied species each do best. It is more like the species work together to provide all of the species (and us) what they need (and that helps us too).
Bacterial species can make many of our essential B vitamins - they need those nutrients too. And they make the butyrate and short chain fatty acids which provide food and immune protection for our colon cells. Dr. Kellman encourages use of fermented foods, and prebiotic fiber rich foods, and varied probiotic supplements that are rotated over 6 months or so to give the gut a replenishment of different species.
Probiotics for Hashimoto’s - Helpful species include Saccharomyces boulardiii, Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus Strains (Multiple Types). Soil-based species include: Bacillus clausii, Bacillus coagulans, and Bacillus subtilis. (restartmed.com/probiotics-for-hashimotos)
I do like a Bacillus spore product that I tried which is by Microbiome Labs (microbiomelabs.com/megasporebiotic/). The Bacillus species help other beneficial species to survive - team players.
For initial healing, the earliest stage of recovery, Dr. Kellman also recommends use of butyrate supplements.
More on butyrate supplements from a different reference source, it turns out we really need the colon cells to have butyrate and short chain fatty acids as a food source because if they don’t have that, they use glucose and aerobic glycolysis for energy . . .
. . . and then the colon is an aerobic environment instead of an anaerobic environment . . . and then the aerobic species that we want to grow within the colon can’t survive there, and aerobic species that don’t belong there can grow there…!!!! That is not good.
So, the first stages of healing gut dysbiosis needs to include supplementation with short chain fatty acids and butyrate so the colon cells will have the food type that they need to provide an anaerobic environment within the colon.
Zheng L, Kelly CJ, Colgan SP. Physiologic hypoxia and oxygen homeostasis in the healthy intestine. A Review in the Theme: Cellular Responses to Hypoxia. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol. 2015 Sep https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4572369/
Dvornikova KA, Platonova ON, Bystrova EY. Hypoxia and Intestinal Inflammation: Common Molecular Mechanisms and Signaling Pathways. Int J Mol Sci. 2023 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9917195/
Singhal R, Shah YM. Oxygen battle in the gut: Hypoxia and hypoxia-inducible factors in metabolic and inflammatory responses in the intestine. J Biol Chem. 2020 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7383395/
Information and references from a presentation by Steven Wright of healthygut.com, his Tributyran product is an enteric capsule that will take it through the small intestine to the colon cells. (healthygut.com) It isn’t inexpensive but having sections of your intestines removed due to colitis isn’t inexpensive either. Getting the gut restarted may be well worth the price. Diet and lifestyle changes may be needed to help support restoring a healthy gut microbiome. See their blog for stories from happy customers. The standard of care for inflammatory bowel conditions is not great and often leads to surgical removal of bowel which can leave permanent malabsorption of nutrients absorbed in that area of the gut. Cutting way down on food for the negative species, and/or using herbal antimicrobials, may be used during the initial phase of a leaky gut protocol.
Butyrate and short chain fatty acids don’t taste or smell good apparently and we want the fatty acids to not be digested in the earlier parts of the intestine as a dietary fat. We want it to get all the way to the colon where it would be used as a temporary source of energy until the butyrate species are replenished which would make it from undigested starches from our veggies and chilled, cooked starches. Which pomegranate peel would help ;-) and zinc. Dr. Kellman’s book does mention polyphenols as beneficial for our microbiome and his recipes included pomegranate seeds in a couple recipes - yeah! **It is odd to listen to a cookbook. I hope this review was helpful for some of my readers. :-)
The Whole Brain, by Raphael Kellman, MD, 2018, (kellmancenter.com)
A post by Dr. Mercola about restoring the microbiome, from the perspective of diverticulitis, was shared in the comments via Doc Skepsis. Akkermansia species is mentioned in his article and fruit polyphenols - pomegranate products do promote Akkermansia and othe butyrate producing species.
The Fullscript protocol includes an Akkermansia product which I have tried. The species helps us producecthe protective mucus layer that lined the intestines.
This was a draft for a while, with notes and screenshots I jotted down as I was working on something else.
I giggled a bit at Google AIs phrasing (I was looking for my own site and entered the phrase thyroid and iodine or iodine and thyroid:
This fruit article is another example of current recommendations and is largely helpful other than the lack of recognizing that autoimmune thyroid conditions need glutathione support more than blaming iodine alone.
The issue with fruit or starches might be that sugary things are inflammatory. Cassava root is also a goitrogen, that is the source of tapioca. I would think the refined starch would have less of goitrogen chemical but I don’t know.
Foods to Avoid if Diagnosed with Hypothyroidism and Hyperthyroidism, (redcliffelabs.com)
The whole body needs iodine, so getting the thyroid happy, aka iodine sufficient, will help the rest of the body's glands too.
Google AI is having a bad day. The Thyroid Don’ts need some editorial help at least.
No, it isn’t the Google AI, the article really is that bad … or English as a second language maybe, but “Say No to macronutrients?” . . . Say yes to starvation?
Precautions for Thyroid Patients - Do’s and Don’ts, Dr. Nikita Toshi, Mar 20, 2024, https://pharmeasy.in/blog/thyroid-problem-dos-and-donts-for-thyroid-patients/
For a while now, years, I have seen suspicious blog articles that looked like an AI rewrite of other sources. AI has improved now compared to some of those examples that had too many errors in basic writing norms to be believable. As the appearance of professionalism of a site or info product increases, the believability increases even though the professional looking person may be wrong instead of fake, or the entire industry may be wrong at very basic levels and everyone they train is then wrong.
Disclaimer This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health guidance.
JD - Excellent dysbiosis discourse. No surprise that a lack of endogenous butyrate producing species has been linked to cancer.
A recent Mercola article has tips on how to restore the microbiome and mitochondria:
https://takecontrol.substack.com/i/144267044/how-to-restructure-your-microbiome