Foods For Managing Hypothyroidism (incl. Hashimoto's)

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Today’s 30-Second Summary

If you don’t have time to read the whole email today, here are some key takeaways:

• Your dog may be eating more healthily than you are!

  • See today’s featured video for an interesting side-by-side comparison of the nutritional profiles of fast food and dog food.

• Hypothyroidism, an underactivity of the thyroid gland, can cause fatigue, weight gain, and other symptoms. Its causes include:

  • Hashimoto’s thyroiditis

  • Severe inflammation

  • Dietary deficiencies

  • Secondary endocrine issues

  • Some medications

• It can be managed at least somewhat by diet. There is nuance depending on what kind of hypothyroidism you have, but general guidelines include:

  • Get plenty of fiber and nutritious whole foods

  • Avoid sugar, alcohol, flour, processed/fried foods

  • Avoid red/processed meat; others are fine (or even good) unless fried

  • Avoid/limit milk, but unsweetened yogurt and cheese are fine (or even good)

  • Consider avoiding gluten (and do avoid soy) if you have Hashimoto’s

  • Cook cruciferous veg before eating, and keep portion sizes of those moderate/small

• Omega-3 fatty acids have a lot of health benefits—including for the joints—but not all sources are created equal

  • Today's sponsor, NativePath, are offering a convenient, sustainable, and highly bioavailable form—far better than cod liver oil!

Read on to learn about these things and more…

👀 WATCH AND LEARN

Fast Food vs Dog Food | Fast Food Nutrition

Would you eat dog food? Caveat: please do not eat dog food.

However, this is an eye-opening side-by-side comparison of their respective nutritional profiles:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

🍽️ MAIN FEATURE

Foods for Managing Hypothyroidism

For any unfamiliar, hypothyroidism is the condition of having an underactive thyroid gland. The thyroid gland lives at the base of the front of your neck, and, as the name suggests, it makes and stores thyroid hormones. Those are important for many systems in the body, and a shortage typically causes fatigue, weight gain, and other symptoms.

What causes it?

This makes a difference in some cases to how it can be treated/managed. Causes include:

• Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, an autoimmune condition

• Severe inflammation (end result is similar to the above, but more treatable)

• Dietary deficiencies, especially iodine deficiency

• Secondary endocrine issues, e.g. pituitary gland didn’t make enough TSH for the thyroid gland to do its thing

• Some medications (ask your pharmacist)

We can’t do a lot about those last two by leveraging diet alone, but we can make a big difference to the others.

What to eat (and what to avoid)

There is nuance here, which we’ll go into a bit, but let’s start by giving the one-line two-line summary that tends to be the dietary advice for most things:

• Eat a nutrient-dense whole-foods diet (shocking, we know)

• Avoid sugar, alcohol, flour, processed foods (ditto)

What’s the deal with meat and dairy?

• Meat: avoid red and processed meats; poultry and fish are fine or even good (unless fried; don’t do that)

• Dairy: limit/avoid milk; but unsweetened yogurt and cheese are fine or even good

What’s the deal with plants?

First, get plenty of fiber, because that’s important to ease almost any inflammation-related condition, and for general good health for most people (an exception is if you have Crohn’s Disease, for example).

If you have Hashimoto’s, then gluten (as found in wheat, barley, and rye) may be an issue, but the jury is still out, science-wise. Here’s an example study for “avoid gluten” and “don’t worry about gluten”, respectively:

• The Effect of Gluten-Free Diet on Thyroid Autoimmunity in Women with Hashimoto's Thyroiditis

• Doubtful Justification of the Gluten-Free Diet in the Course of Hashimoto’s Disease

So, you might want to skip it, to be on the safe side, but that’s up to you (and the advice of your nutritionist/doctor, as applicable).

A word on goitrogens…

Goitrogens are found in cruciferous vegetables and soy, both of which are very healthy foods for most people, but need some extra awareness in the case of hypothyroidism. This means there’s no need to abstain completely, but:

• Keep serving sizes small, for example a 100g serving only

• Cook goitrogenic foods before eating them, to greatly reduce goitrogenic activity

For more details, reading even just the abstract (intro summary) of this paper will help you get healthy cruciferous veg content without having a goitrogenic effect.

(as for soy, consider just skipping that if you suffer from hypothyroidism)

What nutrients to focus on getting?

• Top tier nutrients: iodine, selenium, zinc

• Also important: vitamin B12, vitamin D, magnesium, iron

Enjoy!

❤️ OUR SPONSORS MAKE THIS PUBLICATION POSSIBLE

Convenient, sustainable, highly bioavailable omega-3s (and more)

We've mentioned their other products before, and with good reason. NativePath's mission is very much aligned with our own: they want to help people live their healthiest lives possible.

They also believe that eating, moving, and living in harmony with the natural state is key to achieving optimal wellness. That's why they keep their products as close to nature as possible, without unnecessary additives. So, what's in this one?

• Krill oil: oil from krill, tiny creatures that are a potent (and sustainable!) source of omega-3 fatty acids, in a highly bioavailable form

• Astaxanthin: one of the most powerful antioxidants found in nature (it's also a carotenoid, and that's what gives krill their color!)

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Bonus: because they break down in your intestines rather than your stomach, not only is there no fishy taste... but also no fishy aftertaste or burps (unlike many fish-oil supplements)!

Please do visit our sponsors—they help keep 10almonds free

🌎 AROUND THE WEB

What’s happening in the health world…

• Study explores the effectiveness of caffeine consumption for headaches: trigger or remedy?

• Scientists urge caution before using AI models in healthcare for ethnic minority populations

• How many people with cognitive impairment still drive?

• Finger-Prick Blood Test Promising for Alzheimer's Diagnosis

• Female victims of gender-based violence may have altered stress response systems

• Promising new drug could manage high blood pressure for up to six months with a single injection

• Volunteering in late life associated with better executive function and episodic memory

More to come tomorrow!

📖 ONE-MINUTE BOOK REVIEW

The End of Food Allergy: The First Program To Prevent and Reverse a 21st Century Epidemic - by Dr. Kari Nadeau & Sloan Barnett

We don't usually mention author credentials beyond their occupation/title. However, in this case it bears acknowledging at least the first line of the author bio:

We mention this, because there's a lot of quack medicine out there [in general, but especially] when it comes to things such as food allergies. So let's be clear up front that Dr. Nadeau is actually a world-class professional at the top of her field.

This book is, by the way, about true allergies—not intolerances or sensitivities. It does touch on those latter two, but it's not the main meat of the book.

In particular, most of the research cited is around peanut allergies, though the usual other common allergens are all discussed too.

The authors' writing style is that of a science educator (Dr. Nadeau's co-author, Sloan Barnett, is lawyer and health journalist). We get a clear explanation of the science from real-world to clinic and back again, and are left with a strong understanding, not just a conclusion.

The titular "End of Food Allergy" is a bold implicit claim; does the book deliver? Yes, actually.

The book lays out guidelines for safely avoiding food allergies developing in infants, and yes, really, how to reverse them in adults. But…

Big caveat:

The solution for reversing severe food allergies (e.g. "someone nearby touched a peanut three hours ago and now I'm in anaphylactic shock"), drug-assisted oral immunotherapy, takes 6–24 months of weekly several-hour-long clinic visits, relies on having a nearby clinic offering the service, and absolutely 100% cannot be done at home (on pain of probable death).

Bottom line: it's by no means a magic bullet, but yes, it does deliver.

Click here to check out The End of Food Allergy to learn more!

Velbekommen,

(this is often used like “bon appétit” but is Norwegian and is more like “may what you eat do good things for you”; the Danish equivalent is “velbekomme”, and means the same)

The 10almonds Team