Video: Environmental Factors on the Thyroid

Hi, this is Dr. Minkoff, LifeWorks Wellness Center.

Today I want to talk about environmental factors that can affect your thyroid gland.

So, what do we mean by environmental factors?

Well our environment has some things in it that are good for us.

Like it has oxygen and we need it, so that can affect the thyroid.

But what we’re really talking about today is bad environmental factors.

So, in much of our food we find plastics.

They’re packaged in plastics,
the plastics get in the food, they come into our body, they can get into the thyroid gland.

Heavy metals, you eat too much tuna fish, you get a high load of mercury.

You’re a smoker, you get a high load of cadmium,

these things can wander into the thyroid gland.

Well they’re poisons and as poisons they can block the function of the thyroid gland.

We know that there’s things as petrochemicals,
there’s other things in cosmetics
that also, they get into the body, they get into the thyroid gland.

Now if you have a gland cell, so let’s pretend this is a thyroid cell

and on the thyroid cell there is a little what we call a receptor, it’s a docking station.

The hormone has to come from the outside, dock on here and then it tells the cell do this or do that.

Now, thyroid function is monitored by the pituitary gland,
which is in your brain, it’s right above your hard palate.

It sends a hormone called
thyroid stimulating hormone
to the thyroid and it docks on the thyroid and it says to the thyroid gland make more thyroid hormone.

Now, what do you think happens if there’s some plastic residue sitting on that docking station or heavy metals or some other kind of toxin?

The thyroid stimulating hormone comes to dock here and it can’t, it’s blocked.

Then the thyroid gland doesn’t get the signal to make more thyroid hormone.

Then the thyroid hormone in your blood goes too low.

Then you’re tired or you gain weight or your hair falls out,
all these various things.

And we can look in the blood and say holy smokes what’s wrong with you, why isn’t your thyroid working?

And it turns out the thyroid is poisoned to a certain extent, this is a poisoning of the receptor on that gland and it doesn’t work.

Sometimes the poisoning actually goes inside the thyroid cell

and blocks the cells ability to make the hormone itself
and those same factors,
those same environmental toxins can get in there and do that and then it doesn’t function.

So, thyroid is very susceptible,
it’s high, it’s near the mouth,
there’s a lot of circulation to it and so what we need to do is keep people as detoxified as possible.

Things like sauna and and having good bowel movements every day
and drinking plenty of water and avoiding environmental toxins as much as you can.

Don’t eat food that comes in plastic and packaged and chemicalized
because it has bad stuff in it.

Try to eat as organic as you can.

Doing these things will protect you from these environmental toxins
and keep your thyroid working better longer.

Okay, hope this helps.