The Mineral That Cut Thyroid Antibodies 36% in 3 Months

The second most prescribed drug in America today is the thyroid pill. 82 million prescriptions, about 19 million people, and when the Mayo Clinic researchers went back through their patients' charts, about one in four still were having major symptoms. Even though their TSH levels came back to normal because of the medication, normal on paper does not mean normal in your body. Maybe you're tired by 2:00 in the afternoon, your hands and feet are always cold, there's more hair in the shower drain than there used to be, the scale won't move no matter what you've been eating, you've been dieting, you've been exercising, you've been doing the right things, and this weight will not come off. Or maybe you're dealing with brain fog, constipation, a low mood you can't explain, and you're told that your thyroid is fine because one number came back normal. Now here's the problem. TSH, which stands for thyroid stimulating hormone, is a signal from your brain, and it doesn't tell you how much hormone you're actually making or whether you're activating it or whether your immune system is attacking your thyroid. Today, I'll walk you through the six labs I'd ask for and what to do with each of these. Also go through the top nutritional deficiencies, the top supplements. I'll also talk through the antibody that shows up early so you know early if you have it, and the mineral that cut it by about a third. Also go through the essential vitamins and minerals you must have to heal your thyroid. Welcome to the Dr. Axe Show. I just wanted to say how incredibly grateful I am for each and every one of you who makes this community so special. And as a thank-you, I'm going to be giving away over $5,300 in prizes to many of you. I'm talking about a Sunlighten sauna, a red light therapy mask, cellular blood work testing, Manukora manuka honey, an Echo hydrogen water flask, a signed copy of my New York Times bestselling book, and more. To enter, subscribe to the Dr. Josh Axe Show on YouTube. For 10 bonus entries, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. I'm excited for many of you to win free prizes. By the way, the only way you can be signed up in these is if you are subscribed to the podcast. The giveaway ends December 14th, and we'll announce the winners on December 22nd. Make sure to subscribe and leave a review so you can be entered to win. So here is thyroid trouble by the numbers. Listen to these stats. These are mind blowing. One in eight women will develop a thyroid problem in their lifetime, and I think that number is growing. 60% of people who have thyroid disease don't know they have it. Think about that. More than half the people that have hypothyroidism or Hashimoto's don't even know they have the issue, and this is where, again, if you've got cold hands, if your hair has been thinning, if your metabolism you can tell has slowed down a little bit, it absolutely can be a thyroid problem, or brain fog. Again, these are thyroid issues. About 11% of people carry TPO antibodies, the sign of an immune attack on the thyroid. Women are five to eight times more likely to have hypothyroidism than a man. So these statistics are showing nearly 20 million people, most of them women, have hypothyroidism in the United States today. Now, before I dive in, if you've already learned something, hit the subscribe button. It's free and it's how this reaches more people. Also, it helps me keep this show free, allows me to bring on incredible guests, and it is a blessing to me. So thanks everybody for subscribing. I think it's going to bless you in your life as well. Also, I want you to answer this question. Have you had all of these labs run, okay? Free T4, free T3, reverse T3, TPO antibodies, Tg antibodies, ferritin, okay? Those are the main markers for thyroid health, and many people have not had those done. Also, here's a few others to ask yourself about: vitamin D, zinc, and magnesium can also be critical as well. We're going to talk about these markers and nutrients and so much more on today's show. However, one of the thyroid markers I didn't mention there is TSH, that's thyroid stimulating hormone. This is the one when you go to your doctor, they do a yearly annual exam, they will test TSH, and most labs say, when we're looking at conventional lab markers, that your numbers can be 0.5 to 4 when they look at thyroid hormone. However, when you look at the functional medicine range and what you should actually be at, it should be around 0.5 to 2. The average person's at about 1.5. You could even go up to 2.5, but a lot of people, I'd say half those people are living above that. So you might be at 3 or 3.5, and your doctor says, hey, you don't have a thyroid issue, you're totally normal. However, that is showing you have early hypothyroidism or your thyroid is not functioning ideally. And so if you've noticed just a little bit less energy, a little bit slower metabolism, maybe you put on an extra 5 pounds over the last 5 years, or your hair is just not as thick and luscious as it used to be, those types of issues are early signs of hypothyroidism. Now let's talk about what drains your thyroid. Now here's the thing about your thyroid. Your thyroid doesn't give out overnight, okay? It takes years. And here's what wears it down: number one, chronic stress pushes your body towards reverse T3. Now I see this with a lot of moms, okay? So you know, you were young and single, you were carefree, and then all of a sudden sometime in your 20s, a lot of times you get married, you start having kids, less sleep, more stress, now all of a sudden your thyroid starts getting off, okay, that happens. Here's another big one: low iron. Now I see this in women who have heavy menstruation, but also can happen after you give birth. It can happen with miscarriages, but your body can lose a lot of blood. And if you don't really eat intentionally to replace that blood, your iron stores can get really, really low, and that can cause hypothyroidism or thyroid issues. Here's another big one: you've developed food sensitivities over time. Now when you eat gluten or wheat or certain foods, you can notice you have a reaction and now you have this leaky gut issue. That can cause the problem. Here's another big one: just crash dieting, going up and down. You know, you take a GLP-1, and then you do a diet, and then you, you know, you're always trying stuff up and down, and that can really affect your thyroid in a negative way. Here's another big one: nutritional deficiency, especially low selenium. This helps activate T4 in your body, which of course you also need T4 and you need T3. Selenium is essential there, and it's big especially for Hashimoto's. And then pregnancy in your 40s are common times for trouble to start. Again, I started to see this in the 30s and by 40s, you're just exhausted and tired all the time. But then you go to your doctor and they say, hey, labs are normal, you're not that far off, everything is fine. And so you just think, well, hey, I'm getting older and the kids are exhausting me and you go on your way. But here's the reality: there are things you can do. Now one of the things people used to do a long time ago is do megadosing of iodine. Now that typically doesn't work as well today. Now I do want to say, though, iodine is the backbone of thyroid hormones. And there's a study out of the New England Journal of Medicine that said if you do megadosing of iodine, really high doses, that it can increase your risk of autoimmune disease. Now here's what I'd say: low doses won't do that, okay? And even supplementally, let's say like what I used to have patients do is they would take a kelp supplement, and it was around 150 to 250 micrograms, okay? So I'd have them do a little bit of that daily, but then I would also just encourage foods that have iodine: eggs, wild-caught fish, a little bit of seaweed. These foods have some naturally occurring iodine and can be great for the thyroid along with doing a small tincture of around, again, 150 to 250 micrograms of iodine is about what you want to be getting and supplementing with daily. If you've been told your blood work is normal, but you feel anything but normal, you're not imagining it. A standard blood work panel was never built to show you what's actually going on in your cells, and your standard primary care doctor will likely never connect the dots between all of your symptoms and what's starting in your cells. And the cellular blood work analysis that I created was built just for this. It's an at-home kit that also comes with a review with a senior health advisor who will show you what is going on deep in your cells and if one of our healing protocols might be right for you. We've got hundreds of five-star reviews on Trustpilot, and most of them started right where you are. If you're ready to finally be heard, then go to mybloodwork.com to book your cellular blood work analysis today. Many doctors miss thyroid issues. And the reason is, is that they're only looking for one thing and that's TSH, but there are so many other hormone markers related to thyroid that can be off, that are really bigger problems, okay? And this really starts when active T3 runs low. So remember T3 is your thyroid hormone that's your cellular thyroid hormone. And it's the active form that your body needs. So you know this probably, but when you eat food, your body will bring something in. Let's say you're eating red meat, okay? And then it will take that iron, and then it will take iron and turn it into ferritin, and then the ferritin will be used by your red blood cells, and that helps create oxygen. So your body's always bringing things in and then turning it into different things over time, okay? So this happens quite frequently and the same is true with thyroid hormone, right? We start with TSH, and then we get T4, and then you get T3, and then you actually get some metabolites of T2, and then, you know, but then you get cellular energy that your where your body creates energy for for your entire body. There's a pathway happening there, right? So what happens is we start with T3, and most people have it where their T3 is the first thing that starts running low. And then you'll just start to feel a little bit more tired, a little bit more cold, and sometimes a little bit more foggy, like just a little bit short-term memory, mild brain fog. And then that stress pushes more T4 into what we call reverse T3, and then inflammation builds, okay? So not only do you feel a little tired now and you feel a little bit cold in your extremities and a little foggy, now you start having immune issues, right? More inflammation builds up, you feel like you're aging too fast, your immune attacks get worse, and so there's this sort of loop that starts to happen over time. And now, you know, you just had these mild symptoms years ago, and now you just feel awful. This is what I see with hundreds of patients I care for every single year as they come in with those issues. Now the good news is we start to reverse and heal those issues without a synthetic pill. And what happens most of the time again, you go into your doctor and they say, hey, here's T4, which is levothyroxine or Synthroid, but they just give you a thyroid medication and that's it. And you might feel a little better, but not a lot better, okay? So maybe some of your your numbers get back to normal, but you do not feel completely better. Listen to this: they did a study and they found that women taking T4, this levothyroxine, and women that didn't, even though they both had normal TSH levels, there was a big difference in the group. The women taking the levothyroxine, the thyroid medication, were on average 10 lb heavier than people of the exact same height and body type. Those women also tended to be on three types of drugs more often, like antidepressants and statins. And they also scored 34% more distressed compared to other women. So the reality is thyroid medications like levothyroxine do not fix the root cause of issues. Now let me walk you through how your thyroid actually works and then we're going to get into all of these nutrients and exactly what you need to get your thyroid running correctly again. But think of it like a supply chain, okay? So TSH, which really starts in your brain, only tells you whether your brain placed the order, okay? Now these six labs show you everything after, right? So you start with this TSH, and your gland your gland makes this T4, okay? And then your body turns it into T3. And you need iron to do that by the way, or ferritin. So you go from TSH to T4 and then your body either makes T3 or reverse T3, which is like the brake, where you're not really making T3 at all, okay? And then you really need iron to fuel this whole thing. You need iodine, you need selenium, you need B vitamins. You have to have these in order to function properly. All right, so lab number one you need is free T4. Now you do want TSH as well, but TSH is coming from your brain and it's making the order, saying, hey, I need this. And then free T4 is sort of the delivery that's happening, okay? So the hormone your gland actually made is T4, and it it's then free and ready for your body to use. But here's the thing I do want to mention, this happens a lot of times: you go to your doctor, your TSH might look fine, but your T4 can sit near the bottom. If it's sitting near the bottom, I want to know why it's sitting near the bottom, why we don't have as much raw material. If we had enough TSH, well, why don't we have plenty of T4 now? And there are there are some causes of that which we can get into. There's six markers you want if you want to do a full-on thyroid panel: free T4, which is how much hormone your gland is making; free T3, which is how much active hormone you actually have to use for cellular energy, that's maybe the most important; reverse T3, which is whether your body is hitting the brakes or not; and then TPO antibodies, this is whether your immune system is attacking; Tg antibodies catches some attacks that TPO might miss, but those TPO antibodies is telling you if you have Hashimoto's; and then number six here is ferritin, this is your iron stores that fuel to actually make the hormone. So here's the thing again, you can't just stop at TSH. We want to know what all of these markers are. And then labs two and three you want to know about are free T3 and reverse T3. This is looking at the conversion. Is your body converting T4 to T3? And this is my big problem with people that are taking levothyroxine, if you're taking or or doctors that are prescribing that without checking your other hormones. If you are taking T4, but your entire problem is you have enough T4, you just don't have enough T3 or you're not converting well, which typically is tied to liver health and gut health. So if your liver, if you have insulin resistance, you're metabolically unhealthy, you have GI issues, your body will not convert enough T3. So and and the T3 is really tied to if you have enough energy, warmth, and your metabolism, okay? If you get really stressed out or you're dealing with an illness, maybe it's an infection, it could be mold, it could be long COVID, it could be some sort of virus dormant in your body, what happens is your body takes T4 and turns it into T3 to kind of like slow down your body to go into conservation mode, so you stay fatigued, you stay cold, and the weight won't move no matter how hard you exercise or how hard you diet. Now if you're not converting well T4 to T3, here's some things you must have. Number one is selenium. And by the way, food is medicine. Here's the great news: if you ate just two to three Brazil nuts a day, you're getting a therapeutic dosage of selenium, okay? Each Brazil nut by itself has about 70 to 80 micrograms. So two to three, you don't want to do more than that by the way, you don't want to go overboard. Two to three Brazil nuts a day will get you exactly where you need to be for a therapeutic dose. Number two: zinc. Now the great news is zinc can be found in pumpkin seeds and grass-fed beef. Also heme iron, which you need, is found in grass-fed beef. So I see this with a lot of women with hypothyroidism: they eat more chicken, they don't eat near enough red meat. So bison, lean grass-fed beef, it's better off if it's not very fatty. Again, filet mignon, 90/10 or 93/7 grass-fed beef burgers, lamb, these sort of foods are great. But zinc, iron, also very important for thyroid hormone. And also eating enough, no crash diets, okay? You do not want to greatly undereat. That will make T3 much worse or or push you towards that reverse T3 where you're not getting the T3 you need for metabolism, for and and for your body producing enough heat and enough energy. Here are the four words people say to us most often: "This finally makes sense." Years of scattered symptoms, random supplements, diets that have worked for a little while, but ultimately fell to the wayside. For many, it's the first time somebody has actually shown them the cellular pattern behind their symptoms. And that's what a cellular blood work analysis is for. It's an at-home kit, followed by a one-on-one review with one of our senior health advisors, who will explain exactly what's going on in your cells, and if one of our cellular healing protocols is right for you. And we have hundreds of five-stars on Trustpilot that say the same. If you're ready for it to finally make sense, go to mybloodwork.com and order your kit today. That's mybloodwork.com. And then labs four and five, this is this TPO and TG antibodies. This is looking to see if your own immune system is attacking your thyroid. And this happens all the time. In fact, listen to this number: 80%, nearly 80%, of hypothyroidism is Hashimoto's. So most women that do have thyroid issues have an autoimmune component. So it's very, very prevalent where this is happening. Your body is starting to attack itself. These antibodies are elevated. And this tends to be most tied to leaky gut. There's gut issues, okay? So there tends to be emotional stress. Now the other big thing I want to go back to is selenium deficiency. Antibodies in a study, antibodies fell 36% in 3 months using Brazil nuts, or just selenium. That's that's a big change. So you've got to do selenium there, and you've got to take care of your gut microbiome, and you also need vitamin D. That's another one here. Getting your vitamin D levels checked is crucial for this. And then also things like high-sensitivity CRP, what are your inflammation levels, but doing more soups, cooked vegetables, meat, cooked fruit, lowering the stress levels and cortisol, then your gut can heal, you can heal leaky gut, and that will improve Hashimoto's and those thyroid issues. Then lab number six is ferritin, which is your iron storage. This is the enzyme that builds thyroid hormone. TPO runs on iron. So ferritin is your iron savings. It's the iron that your body has stored up. And when it's low, your thyroid has less to build with. And there's one small study done, and on in this study, 14 of 20 women with ferritin between 15 and 60 were symptom-free after raising it with iron. So so here's what this is saying, is that women had symptoms of hypothyroidism: slow metabolism, cold body, low energy, thinning hair, all of those issues that you get. The women in the study, 14 of 20 of them, just started getting their iron levels up, their ferritin levels up. And that greatly improved their symptoms. They were symptom-free. They basically reversed their issue. So I found this in doing thousands of blood work tests over the years: oftentimes, you can be deficient in just one thing, and that can be causing it. And for you, it could be selenium, it could be ferritin, it could be vitamin D. Any one of those can cause hypothyroidism. Iodine, there's another one. And so when you're getting your blood work done, you absolutely want to make sure you're getting your ferritin levels checked. And the other thing is you want to be eating heme iron foods with vitamin C foods. So heme iron foods means red meat, okay? Grass-fed beef, lamb, bison. Chicken thighs have a little bit, you know, when you do the darker meat of of poultry, but really grass-fed beef, lamb, and bison is where you want to go. Liver, you could do liver capsules. And then plant iron with vitamin C is another place you want to go. That's going to help get those ferritin storages up. And then if your ferritin levels are really low, you can can take an iron supplement. You want to do like an iron bisglycinate that's easier to absorb, take that with food. But you really want to do that in addition to getting red meat, taking some liver capsules, all those things are going to help. And then here are my top 10 thyroid supplements in ranking order that can help you overcome your symptoms. Number one: magnesium glycinate. The reason I like magnesium glycinate is it lowers stress, improves sleep, taking around 300 mg at bedtime, it's going to be helpful. Number nine: omega-3 fatty acids. By the way, one of the reasons sometimes ferritin can get low is excess inflammation. So taking omega-3 supplement can help lower inflammation, improving those iron stores. Number eight: L-glutamine, 5 g a day. That's going to support that gut lining, especially if you have an issue like Hashimoto's, thyroiditis, where there's a leaky gut component. Number seven: a B complex or B12, making sure that your thyroid has what it needs to support energy production. Number six: vitamin D, 5,000 to 10,000 IU daily for most people. And then make sure you're converting it well, eating it with a meal that has some good healthy fat. Number five is zinc. Zinc is critical for thyroid hormone production and for healing your gut, okay? Typically 15 to 30 mg with food. Number four: an herb like ashwagandha, because when you can lower cortisol and balance those hormones, that is going to have a positive impact on your thyroid hormones. Number three is iron, but only if it's low, okay? And you typically want to do an iron supplement that also has vitamin C and the other cofactors needed. Now here's another supplement we didn't get into, but myo-inositol, okay? This used to be part of the B vitamin family, so did so did choline, but this is also really important for if you if you have lower TSH levels. And then number one, by far, the most important nutrient for thyroid issues is selenium. And again, you can take that as a supplement or two to three Brazil nuts daily. And here's what a thyroid-friendly day would look like. Ideally, you wake up first thing in the morning, and then you have a protein-rich breakfast, two or three Brazil nuts. Also, sometime during the day, you could do a few pumpkin seeds. If you know your gut isn't really strong and robust, you could get sprouted pumpkin seed butter and do a flat tablespoon of that to get some zinc in there as well at some point. But but that that could be great. And then for and then take your supplements there in the morning that we talked about. And then for lunch, I would do a big bowl of vegetable soup or something like cooked chicken and rice or sweet potato, but some some warm meal. And then for dinner, similar: grass-fed beef or wild salmon with a bunch of steamed or well-cooked vegetables. You could also cook those in olive oil. A little bit of sea salt would be great there as well. And then before you go to bed, that 300 mg of magnesium. And then just walking throughout the day, moving throughout the day. If you have an infrared sauna, get in there, warm up your body a bit. That's what an ideal day would look like for supporting your thyroid. And you do want to generate heat. Remember, your body temperature is low. Infrared sauna, soaking in a warm bath with Epsom salt every night, drinking ginger and cinnamon herbal tea, you know, warming and warming and warming your body even more is what you want to focus on doing. And then here are my top 10 thyroid foods. Number one, of course, is Brazil nuts. Also pumpkin seeds or pumpkin seed butter, grass-fed beef, wild salmon or other wild-caught fatty fish, pastured eggs. Number one: Brazil nuts, because they contain selenium. Number two: pumpkin seeds or pumpkin seed butter, because of zinc. Grass-fed beef, also high in iron and zinc. Wild salmon, high in omega-3s and a little bit of iodine. Pasture-raised eggs also have iodine and choline, great for the thyroid. Bone broth, sardines high in selenium and omega-3s. Seaweed high in iodine. Leafy greens high in minerals. And then berries, these are good antioxidants that can support your body as well. But this is sort of the ideal here. And then I would throw in ginger and cinnamon, some of these warming herbals as well. If you add these foods in and you get rid of the gluten and the sugar and the alcohol and crash dieting, you're going to see major improvements in your thyroid quickly. Hey, no matter what you've been told about cortisol, it's not the actual enemy, and your goal isn't to eliminate it. It's to bring it back into balance. Now chronic stress can throw healthy cortisol completely out of sync, and that ripple effect impacts more than just how you feel every day. Elevated cortisol can influence your appetite, blood sugar regulation, and how your body manages weight, which makes supporting healthy cortisol balance a real, incredibly important part of weight management and overall health. That's exactly why I use Active Peptides Cortisol. It's not just about helping you feel relaxed for a moment, it's formulated to help bring your body's natural systems into balance and adapt over time. Inside this formula, you'll find clinically studied peptides paired with efficacious amounts of L-theanine, ashwagandha, magnolia root, and rhodiola adaptogens, which have a long history of tradition and backed by modern science. Right now, new customers can save $10 by using my code, DRAXE10. Give your body the support it needs to handle stress the way God designed it to. Click the link to check out this incredible cortisol balancing product from Ancient Nutrition. Here's what I would encourage you to do: do a 90-day test run on the diet and supplements I talked about. Also, if you need blood work done, remember you can go to the Health Institute. There's a great blood work panel I have available at CellRx, that's c-e-l-l-r-x.com. You can go to cellrx.com and get many of these markers done and more that can kind of clue us in on how your thyroid's doing. Now one question I commonly get is, what about T3 or Armour Thyroid? Listen to this study. In a 70-person crossover trial, nearly 50% preferred desiccated thyroid like NP Thyroid or Armour, and 18% preferred T4 alone. And the people taking the mix, the Armour Thyroid, which is T4 and T3, lost about an extra 3 lb. But overall, for most people, it is a better option, but you only know if you are working with a great practitioner and you're getting the right test run. And this isn't happening often. This is why I know in my local clinic here in Nashville, the Longevity Clinic, we are doing all this testing and helping patients get exactly where they need to be with their thyroid hormones. But again, a lot of women today are not they don't have a great doctor. But here here's the thing all of you can do: all of you can follow this 90-day plan. By the way, in the show notes, I have a thyroid plan for you to follow. Of the supplements to take, the meals to eat, all those things you need to know about, you can get free in the show notes. And then if you want help with your health, you can do that CellRx blood work through the Health Institute or visit the Longevity Clinic and get extra help there as well. By the way, I think I even have a couple recipe ideas in that thyroid protocol you can find there in the show notes as well. Hey, before I go, would you do me a big favor? Subscribe. It's the number one thing you can do to support myself, the show here, allowing me to continue to bring on amazing guests, and it also allows this show to continue to grow. So first of all, I just want to thank you, all of you, for subscribing. By the way, that way you also don't miss a thing. This allows it to show up more in your feed regularly, is what you is is what you're going to get when you're subscribed. So thank you all of you that have subscribed. Also, thank you a lot of you who have been leaving reviews recently. I'm so grateful for that. And also, by the way, don't forget if you subscribe, you can also enter to win our big giveaway. We're giving away over $5,000 worth of free wellness equipment: an infrared sauna, a red light mask, we're giving away free blood work, we're giving away books, we're giving away we're giving away all free manuka honey, all kinds of things. So make sure to subscribe, because that's how you enter the contest. We have more than 10 people that are going to win something as part of this giveaway. Also, remember if you have more questions, visit draxe.com. There's a tool on there called Ask Dr. Axe Anything. You can type in your question, and you will get a top-level question from my mind. So you may wonder what supplements are best for something, or you're dealing with a condition, go to draxe.com right now and ask those questions. And if you want to dig deeper on turning T4 into T3, watch my next video up right now. Thanks for subscribing and watching. I can't wait to see you on the next episode.