Hashimoto's Disease – Autoimmune Thyroiditis
Does a low-carbohydrate diet work best for Hashimoto’s disease? What about a gluten-free diet? There are a number of diets out there claiming to be the best for Hashimoto’s thyroiditis but as with any condition, there is no single best diet for everyone. I’ll cover two research papers that look into two specific diets for Hashimoto’s disease.
Vitamin D has long been established in literature as a highly essential nutrient with benefit to the musculoskeletal system and bone density. It also functions in the body as an immunomodulator, facilitating normal immune system function and improving resistance against certain diseases.
Given this background, one has to wonder if a deficiency in vitamin D would be prevalent among individuals with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and if so, would supplementation with vitamin D help patients manage the disease or perhaps even prevent it?
We have never had any good studies looking at how food allergies, or more specifically food intolerances, affect Hashimoto’s disease. A recent paper, however, did show that people following a gluten-free diet can help heal Hashimoto’s disease. In this article, Dr. Hedberg answers the question if food intolerances affect Hashimoto’s disease?
I was excited to find a new paper just published last month that looked specifically at food intolerances and Hashimoto’s disease. The paper was published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition and it was entitled, “Evaluation of Correlations Between Food-Specific Antibodies and Clinical Aspects of Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis.”
In this episode of The Dr. Hedberg Show I interview therapist Patti Elledge in a deep discussion about healing adverse childhood experiences (ACE’s), trauma, epigenetics, attachment theory, somatic experiencing, evolutionary biology, and much more.
Patti Elledge has specialized in therapeutic application of neuroscience for more than 40 years. She has a broad clinical background in developmental and attachment based traumas and worked directly with babies, children and families for more than 25 years prior to her SE training in the late 90s. She specializes in interpersonal neurobiology and how that affects social/emotional, language/cognition and sensory processing development. Her blending of somatic and body-mind techniques helps resolve over-coupled elements of the fight-flight-freeze that seemingly becomes intractable with the essence of loving/bonding and “belonging.” By accessing these parts of the nervous system we can return to healthy regulation and functioning, greater flow and creativity. Patti studied directly with Drs. Peter Levine, Raja Selvam and Diane Poole Heller and holds Trauma Informed Touch Certification from Kathy Kain. She serves as Faculty for Diane’s seminal trainings for healing adult attachment wounds, called DARe. Patti has an active private practice in Asheville, NC where she provides therapy as well as mentoring to other somatic practitioners learning SE and DARe.
If you’re reading this then you’ve probably taken the ACE Survey but if you haven’t then you can download it here. If you even just scored a 1 on the ACE Survey then this article is definitely for you. The higher your ACE score the more likely you are to have health problems as an adult due to what you went through as a child. Additionally, if you feel like you’ve been doing everything right with your diet, exercise, sleep, managing stress levels etc. but you just can’t get well, then you probably haven’t addressed your ACE’s. This article will give you the tools you need and cover how to heal adverse childhood experiences.
Recently I have been researching the fascinating field of childhood trauma and uncovered an interesting link between adverse childhood experiences and Hashimoto’s disease.
One of the studies I discovered came out of a large, important public health study, The ACE Study, but it focused specifically on cumulative childhood stress and autoimmune disease in adults.
Adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs, are experiences that expose individuals under the age of 18 to childhood traumatic stress. These experiences include physical, emotional or sexual abuse; witnessing domestic violence; growing up with household substance abuse, mental illness, parental divorce, and/or the incarceration of a household member.
In this episode of The Dr. Hedberg Show, I interviewed Dr. Shannon South to discuss healing trauma and finding joy in our lives. Dr. Shannon D. South, aka the “Joy Doctor”, is an award-winning therapist, an Amazon best-selling author, and a professional speaker. As an expert in the field of spirituality and healing trauma for over 20 years, she knows how to assist people in finding wholeness and joy naturally. In 1994, during graduate school, Shannon had a spiritual experience during meditation that healed her debilitating anxiety and depression permanently. Since this transformative experience, she has helped thousands of clients connect to their most loving and joy-filled selves. Shannon also leads workshops and retreats for counselors, chaplains and coaches on how to integrate Spirit and Soul into their practice. Her most upcoming book, Ignite! Turn off the Chaos and Turn on the Joy is a roadmap to this unique, healing process. Shannon loves dancing, being in nature, teaching spiritual psychology and enjoying the beautiful mountains of NC where she resides with her family and friends. She can be found at www.whatsyourjoyiq.com or www.drshannonsouth.com
A fair number of the patients I see are already eating a healthy diet but they’re still not feeling well. Once we delve deep into their history and their lives, it becomes very clear that stress is at the bedrock of their illness. It’s extremely frustrating to be eating well all the time but still experiencing symptoms.
We know that stress shuts down digestion including suppression of stomach acid, bile flow, and pancreatic function. All of these are necessary for healthy digestion but if we’re stressed while we are eating, that healthy food we’re putting into our bodies won’t get digested properly and it may have some more interesting effects on the body.
In this episode of The Dr. Hedberg Show, I interview Dr. Michael Ruscio and we discuss non-celiac gluten sensitivity, prebiotics, probiotics, the microbiome, SIBO, FODMAPs and much more. You can read the transcript below.
Michael Ruscio is a doctor, clinical researcher and best-selling author whose practical ideas on healing chronic illness have made him an influential voice in functional and alternative medicine. His work has been published in peer-reviewed medical journals and he speaks at integrative medical conferences across the globe. Dr. Ruscio also runs an influential website and podcast at DrRuscio.com, in addition to his clinical practice located in northern California.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn about some recent research on the positive effects of black cumin seed oil and Hashimoto’s disease. I’m always searching for compounds that can help my patients with Hashimoto’s disease and black cumin seed oil looks like a real winner. In this article I break down two promising studies on black cumin seed oil and how it can help autoimmune thyroiditis.