Tired of Feeling Tired?

By Tina Christoudias-Spyrou

Why Is Nutrition a Vital Part of Hypothyroidism Therapy?

The age old adage, “You are what you eat,” could not be more true
in relation to healing symptoms associated with hypothyroidism.
Real, whole, and unprocessed foods offer the body the nutrients
it needs to boost metabolism, to balance hormones and the

• Language: English
• Publisher: Maria Christina Christoudias
• Release date: Jul 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781912320011

Tina Christoudias-Spyrou

Tina Christoudias-Spyrou is a Harvard-trained clinical dietitian and nutritionist, who through her own journey of having Hashimoto's thyroiditis, now helps patients to reduce autoimmune symptoms with nutrition. Her mission is to spread the message of how the way we eat can be a game-changer to therapies used to address hypothyroidism.

Book preview

Tired of Feeling Tired?

Tina Christoudias-Spyrou,

MBA, RDN

Clinical Dietitian, Nutritionist

First published in United Kingdom in 2017

Copyright © 2017 Tina Christoudias-Spyrou, MBA, RDN

The right of Tina Christoudias-Spyrou to be identified as the Author of the Work.

All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent publisher.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-912320-01-1

Cover design: Ioanna Pattichi

Edited by: Sandra J. Judd

Disclaimer

The medical information in this book is provided as an educational resource only, and is not intended to be used or relied upon for any diagnostic or treatment purposes. This information should not be used as a substitute for professional diagnosis and treatment.

The nutritional interventions discussed in this book should not be used as a substitute for conventional medical therapy.

Furthermore, none of the statements in this book have been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

Please consult your health-care provider before making any health-care decisions or for guidance about a specific medical condition.

Dedication

I dedicate this book to all those who suffer from hypothyroidism as well as those who have found the strength to take their health into their own hands.

TIRED OF FEELING TIRED?

TABLE OF CONTENTS

My Story

Thyroid Disease Basics

How the Thyroid Works

How common is hypothyroidism?

Not-So-Common Symptoms of Hypothyroidism

Causes of Hypothyroidism

Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis

The Gut Connection

How the Digestive Process Works

What Is a Leaky Gut?

Leaky Gut and Autoimmune Disease

The Importance of the Microbiome

Nutrition Considerations for Candida albicansand Helicobacter pylori

Pathways to Healing the Gut

The Magic of Bone Broth

Dairy – To Eat or Not to Eat?

Supplements that May Help with Healing the Gut:

The System Trio and Your Thyroid

Immune System Support

A Common Sense Approach to Supporting Adrenal Health

How Sex Hormones Affect Thyroid Function

Foods and Environmental Factors that Affect Thyroid Function Negatively

Grains Are Not Your Friend

The Truth About Soy and Other Goitrogens

Is Being Vegan a Good Idea for Healing Hypothyroidism?

Non-food Considerations for Thyroid Health

Diets and Foods to Consider for Hypothyroidism

Can a detox Help to Boost Thyroid Function?

The Right Fats to Eat for your Thyroid

Different Therapeutic Diets to Consider for Hypothyroidism

Important Nutrients for Thyroid Disease

Seven-step Guide to Eating for a Healthy Thyroid

Putting It All Together

Final Thoughts

References

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my parents, John and Aphrodite, who taught me that life belongs to those who dare. Without them, I would not have the courage and the strength to fight for what I believe in. Thanks Mom and Dad for instilling such high values and standards in me.

I would also like to thank my husband, Spyros, for the unrelenting love and support he continues to give me on this journey of life we are on together. The sacrifices he made while I was writing this book and on my journey to healing can never be repaid. I am grateful for such an amazing partner.

I thank my children Aphrodite, Demetris, and Stefanos for being my cheerleaders no matter what and for keeping my spirits high.

I would also like to thank my brother, Mario, who is an inspiration to me because of his strong work ethic, his contagious personality,and his consistently positive attitude. His friendship has been invaluable to me.

It goes without saying that many thanks also go out to my smart, passionate,and visionary colleagues, Vanessaand Christina, who inspire me to pursue higher levels of knowledge and success on a daily basis.

MY STORY

I am a recovering victim of hypothyroidism. Why do I call myself a victim?Well, let me tell you a story to give you a better picture.

In my twenties, I was a person who was full of life. I loved to be outdoors, I listened to all types of music, I sang opera, I had an active social life, and I spent a lot of time reading and studying. Anyone who has ever known me will tell you how silly and full of smiles I was. In my thirties, however, things drastically changed. I found myself tired all the time. I couldn’t concentrate or focus, I slept for hours, gained weight, lost a lot of hair, had constipation, and was depressed. I suspected that I had a thyroid problem, as I had lived through my mother having thyroid disease. Unfortunately, I was right.

The up-beat and fun-loving spirit that everyone knew was no more. I seldom smiled and could not muster up the energy to even go for a walk outside. So, I did what everyone does when they do not feel well. I went to the doctor.

Oh my God! the doctor said. You have one of the highest TSH levels I have ever seen. Ok, the answer is clear here. Let’s start you on thyroxine.A glimmer of hope. I would start taking these magic pills and finally start to feel better!

Unfortunately, that day never came. I continued to feel low and exhausted. I would spend my days sitting on the couch for hours with only enough energy to walk back and forth to the kitchen. What did I do to make myself feel some sort of comfort?Eat all the foods that I was not supposed to. Mainly foods made up of white flour and sugar.

Now, one would think that the above scenario would be unthinkable for a trained, registered dietitian such as myself. After all, I had all the tools I needed to take care of myself. I had the power to heal myself, right?Wrong!In our training, we are not taught how nutrition can heal the body. We are taught how it can maintain a desperate disease state. Our professors talked about diabetes maintenance or weight maintenance. We seldom heard about how nutrition could be the game changer when faced with a chronic ailment.

After seeing me suffer for so long, my husband gave me something that changed my life. He went on the internet and found a book called, Stop the Thyroid Madness. Thank you Janie A. Bowthorpe for opening my eyes. Ms. Bowthorpe is not a nutrition professional but she is a person who wanted answers, as I did. From that book, I discovered that thyroxine-only therapy was doing nothing for me and that there were better alternatives.

To make a long story short, I found a doctor of integrative medicine, Dr. David Owen, while on holiday in England. I owe a lot to this man as he started me on the journey toward recovery. He gave me nutritional supplements and gave me some pointers on how to change my diet (no irony there!). After only one week of making a few changes, my brain fog lifted (and my intestines began to function! Yay!).

Well, this was only the beginning of the journey for me. Using my scientific background and my knowledge in nutrition to my advantage, I started to look for more answers. I discovered that eating organic, natural foods and avoiding grains and all processed foods really put me on the road to recovery. The answer had been in my hands all along. The secret to recovery was in nature and in my food. I started to explore holistic nutrition and functional medicine tactics and with my clinical background, I started to put the pieces of the thyroid puzzle together.

So, why was I a victim?I was a victim because the medical community, the way I was trained as a nutritionist, and the food industry failed me. I am not saying that doctors and my education are useless. I am saying that I discovered that we as a global community, put unyielding trust in a system that falls short of treating chronic disease.

What do I mean? We eat foods prepared by fast-food companies and restaurants because it just looks and smells so good. We use toxic substances to clean our homes. We barely go outside to connect with nature. We pop pills to make our headaches go away instead of exploring why the headaches are happening in the first place. We buy our children sugar- laden cereal, believing that we are giving them something healthy. We are money obsessed and therefore stressed out to no end. Doesn’t this sound like an equation for disease?Of course it does!Our bodies, minds, and spirits all need balance to exist happily and peacefully. The answer to treating your thyroid problem is not just in a pill, but in completely altering your lifestyle from your psychology to the type of water you drink.

I wrote this book in order to share my personal experience and scientific expertise with those who suffer from thyroid disease.I feel where all of you are coming from, because I, too, was in a dark place for a long time. I wrote this book as a living testament to how a holistic lifestyle with real food can heal you and can bring you to the healthy person you want to be. I hope this small contribution will help change lives and inspire people to spread the word about holistic therapy. I wish you a happy journey to good health!

As the issue of hypothyroidism is complex, the focus of this book will be on research that supports nutrition protocols for supporting thyroid treatment. Nutrition therapy is a game changer for many chronic diseases and should definitely be employed when trying to improvehealth and overall quality of life. It is beyond the scope of this book to discuss in detail laboratory and other tests, medications, and other issues with which only a doctor or functional medicine practitioner can help you.

My Personal Experience with Hypothyroidism

After feeling tired and run-down for so long, I was relieved to find out that I could take thyroxine and start to feel better. When that did not happen and I really explored more about the disease, as with many other diseases like cardiovascular disease and cancer, I found that hypothyroidism is the culmination of a variety of different factors and that it takes years to develop.

Sure, we can blame this on genes, but research shows that we have control over which genes are turned on and which genes stay dormant. The particular study of genetics that I talk about is called epigenetics. There is even a sub-section of this area of study called nutri-epigenetics.Nutri-epigenetics looks at how food can turn genes on or off.

Epigenetics and the role of how food affects gene regulation are too involved to get into. I recommend you read my colleague Christina Economidou’s book, Anti-Cancer, The Preventive Power of Food, for a great example of how nutrition can change our genes to protect against cancer.

The reason I brought up epigenetics at all is that, like other diseases, hypothyroidism can be prevented as well as put into remission by diet. The thing I realized when looking for ways to heal myself was that hypothyroidism occurs because so many other things are going wrong in the body. The thyroid doesn’t wake up one day and decide not to work. There are many factors that cause it to falter.

The adrenal glands, the intestines, the microbiome (the special blend of bacteria, viruses, and parasites that we all host), sex hormones, and the immune system all play a role in hypothyroidism. Therefore, all of these areas need to be addressed in order to heal. One can see why simply taking thyroxine without making necessary lifestyle changes falls short of decreasing hypothyroid symptoms.

The good news is that there are nutritional protocols that can be followed to address all of the afore-mentioned areas. Together with medication (or for some without), looking at the root cause of hypothyroidism and addressing it with nutrition can drastically change one’s health outcome.

When I cut out foods like gluten and conventional dairy from my life, I literally started to feel better in a matter of days!My intestines worked better and I even saw the scale start to move in the right direction (for the first time in years). This dietary change, however, was only scratching the surface.

In this book, I talk about all of the areas that can contribute to hypothyroidism and I provide nutrition protocols that address each area. I present the research on foods that can boost thyroid function and discuss the foods that can hinder it. I also discuss other lifestyle factors, like stress, environmental toxins and chemicals, and exercise and how they can negatively or positively affect thyroid function.

Hypothyroidism is complicated. I drove myself crazy for many years trying to find answers to why I was feeling so low and depleted. Changing my diet, getting the right supplements, decreasing stress, and exercising all helped me to heal. My hope with this book is that you can find some nutrition solutions to help you on your journey to gaining health and feeling better.

CHAPTER1

THYROID DISEASE BASICS

How the Thyroid Works

Let’s start with the basics. The obvious way to better understand hypothyroidism is to look at the thyroid gland itself, how it functions, and how it affects the rest of the body.

The thyroid is a small butterfly-shaped organ found in the middle of the throat. As I have a music background, I like to refer to it as the conductor of the orchestra. It dictates how slow or fast, high or low, loud or soft, the music (in this case, the metabolic functioning of the body) will play.

The body needs thyroid hormones for the cells to produce energy, for the scalp to grow hair, for the intestines to digest food, for other hormones in the body to function properly, and for the brain to think. Without the right amount of thyroid hormones, the body, as an orchestra, is left to its own accord. Likewise, if some members of the orchestra (in this case the immune system, the gastro-intestinal tract, the adrenal glands, sex hormones, and the brain)start playing their own tune, thyroid function will also suffer. In other words, the thyroid needs the other systems in the body to function properly, just as the other systems in the body need the thyroid to do the same.

The thyroid is responsible for producing the hormones T4, T3, T2, T1, and calcitonin. To make things easy, however, we will focus on T4 and T3. T4 (thyroxine) is the stored form of thyroid hormone. In other words, it is not actively used by the cells to produce energy. T4 is converted to T3(triiodothyronine) which is the active form of thyroid hormone or the hormone that is used by the cells to produce energy.

When the thyroid produces a sufficient amount of both hormones, this creates a negative feedback loop, instructing the hypothalamus of the brain and the pituitary gland to tell the thyroid gland to continue to produce these hormones. However, when the thyroid produces either not enough or too much thyroid hormone, the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland instruct the thyroid to produce more or less hormone, respectively.

I wish the above explanation was good enough to make us fully comprehend the thyroid and how it works. It sounds easy, right?In the case of hypothyroidism, if you do not produce enough thyroid hormone, you simply need to supplement with extra (which in most cases, is with T4-only medication). Unfortunately, the answer is that it is not necessarily that straightforward.

How common is hypothyroidism?

This is a tough question because it depends on a variety of things. Firstly, it depends on how a doctor would define hypothyroidism based on their interpretation of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) levels (the common blood test used to diagnose hypothyroidism). I say interpretation because experts today still cannot agree on what a normal or optimal range is for TSH. Knowing this fact and taking into consideration that many patients may not recognize the signs and symptoms of hypothyroidism, it becomes apparent that a lot of cases of a low-functioning thyroid may go unnoticed.

Adding to this confusion, hypothyroidism can also be classified into different categories: Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (or autoimmune thyroiditis), hypothyroidism, and subclinical hypothyroidism. Therefore, depending on what parameters are being looked at, the prevalence of an underactive thyroid will vary.

In general, in countries that are iodine deficient, goiter formation and congenital hypothyroidism are seen. (A goiter is defined as the enlargement of the thyroid gland due to a deficiency in iodine). However, in countries such as the USA and Europe that have instilled programmes to replete iodine back into the food system, increasing cases of autoimmune thyroiditis are reported.¹

Post-mortem studies, or studies performed after death, revealed that 27 percent of adult women, who