The gut-thyroid connection

The human body is an amazing and complex interconnected web.

Just look at some of the ways your thyroid hormones impact your gut, and your gut impacts your thyroid hormones.

Thyroid hormones do some important things in the gut.

Thyroid hormones:

1. Help your microbiome – or bacteria that have direct benefits to your immune and general health – to populate. If this doesn’t happen, opportunistic or pathogenic bacteria as well as yeast can overgrow, causing disease

2. Impact the metabolic rate of your gut bacteria – or how the function. Low levels result in reduced microbial diversity. The greater you microbial diversity, the better your health

3. Help the tight junctions of your gut lining heal and regenerate.

4. Activate the intestinal motor complex, or smooth muscles contractions that ensure the proper movement of food along your digestive tract and avoid yeast infections

5. Promote proper gallbladder contractions, enabling fat to be broken down and, importantly, preventing gallstones from developing

6. Healthy thin bile also binds to different receptors in the gut, which support healthy tight intestinal junctions, good bacterial growth and gut immune function

7. The ileocecal valve separating your relatively sterile small intestine from your large one where most of your bacteria live, relies on thyroid hormones. If this valve is compromised, bacteria can move into the small intestine causing reactions to sugars and fibrous foods, and possibly permanent gut damage

Your gut impacts your thyroid hormones

1. The bacteria in your gut impact how your thyroid functions. Gut bacteria release products that play a key role in normal thyroid signalling.

2. The composition of your gut microbiota influences the availability of essential micronutrients for your thyroid gland. Iodine, iron, and copper are crucial for making thyroid hormones; selenium and zinc are needed for converting raw thyroid hormone (T4) into its useable form (T3); and vitamin D assists in regulating your immune response.

3. The conversion of T4 into T3 can also be compromised when your microbiome isn't diverse and healthy

I’ve seen clients put their Hashimoto’s – an autoimmune condition that accounts for most hypo or slow thyroid issues – by using just nutrition (food and targeted supplements). Diet and lifestyle are powerful.