Toxins Muckin' with My Thyroid

A kind gesture from my dentist today - she graciously offers plastic bottles of water in her waiting room - turns out to be a disaster for your thyroid. My daughter eagerly grabbed a bottle and started drinking. I love my dentist, but those bottle contain bis-phenol A (BPA) and they slow down our thyroid receptors. My TSH may not reveal the injury, but my weight does, as does my sluggish morning energy.

You’ve heard the dire news on environmental pollution. I used to pitch it into the file of “things I can’t worry about right now,” but then I realized that I too was affected. Turns out my lazy thyroid was rooted in mercury toxicity and too much BPA. What I thought 5 years ago was a healthy lunch once/week of brown rice/tuna sushi rolls from Whole Foods was slowly poisoning my system as mercury mounted and shut down my thyroid hormone production. My hair fell out, I gained weight despite an aggressive exercise campaign and I was tired most of the time.

Second-hand smoke has also been shown to impair your thyroid, particularly in younger kids and infants.

If your bod can’t keep up with the steady diet of toxins that we encounter, your liver metabolism takes a hit. Leptin rises. You become cranky, irritable and tired. You develop dark circles under your eyes. The main organ tasked with detoxification is your liver, and toxic backlog is a common diagnosis in my integrative medical practice. This is well-summarized by integrative nutritionist Byron Richards:

“It is like pouring sand into the gas tank of a car, It does not matter whether the car is old or new, when the engine gets clogged, it will not run correctly. The liver must be clear all such chemicals.”

There is a definite correlation between the severity of hypothyroid symptoms and toxic exposure. Being overweight is especially complex, because toxins are stored in fat. Toxic folks have tremendous difficulty losing weight, and here’s the worst part: when you manage to lose a few pounds of fat, you get re-exposed to the toxins stored in the fat you’re burning. So unfair!

What’s a thyroidista to do?

1.    Reduce exposure – you know that it’s best to drink from glass or stainless steel containers. Use them exclusively. Read Time Magazine’s recent review of what toxins do to your endocrine system and how to limit your risk. Recent data also shows that probiotics limit your absorption of BPA. Cracks in your metal dental fillings are another source of mercury – if you have metal amalgams, consider replacement with your dentist. http://tinyurl.com/GCtoxins

2.    Cleanse your liver – I recommend to my patients a 30-day cleanse every 6 months. Check out our website for more information. http://gottfriedcenter.com/

3.    See if you have mercury toxicity – there are many tests available commercially. I recommend a provoked test with a chelator such as DMPS. Testing is available for $79-100. Contact my staff for more info and to order your test at 510.893.3907.

For more info, check out the NRDC's excellent article on BPA-free water containers.

 Reposted from DearThyroid.org

Are You Mercury Toxic?

Great post by Mark Hyman, MD, on mercury toxicity, in the Huffington Post. Read it right here. Then read Part 2.

Important stuff especially if you have kids or have symptoms of high mercury (fatigue, difficulty with weight loss, low libido, headaches, hair loss, etc).

How's Your Mercury Level?

Today the front page of the SF Chronicle warned that most of California's top fishing locations are brimming with nasty toxins such as mercury and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls). Here's the report -- the most comprehensive survey ever of pollution in our lakes and reservoirs.

I feel like my worlds are converging: my passion for optimizing women's health and my passion for living green and detoxing whenever we can. For many years, I've felt "too busy" to focus on the pollution we encounter, but then mercury got my attention when I tested in the toxic range for mercury in 2006. Maybe this is not an issue just for the Rachel Carlson types, and my husband, David Gottfried, founder of the US Green Building Council and World Green Building Council.

David also happens to be an avid fisherman.

So if you are feeling like heavy metal and other toxic exposure doesn't affect you, think again. Test yourself to be sure. There is an easy screening test that you can get through my office for $59. It tests your hair for toxic metals. It's not the gold standard, but it's a good screening test to see if you're exposed.

Another issue is that these heavy metals get deposited in tissues as we age, and then periods of hormonal flux, such as the perimenopausal craziness I'm in right now myself, liberate large amounts of the stored heavy metals, especially in BONE, my friends, and can add to the hormonal chaos.

Why do I need to worry about this, you may ask? Here are some of the common symptoms of mercury toxicity:

• fatigue in 50%
  
• headache in 35%
• poor memory in 30%
• hair loss in 25%
  
• constipation in 15%
• low libido
  
• underactive thyroid
  
• difficulty losing weight
  

Oy. More in a moment - gotta go fetch the kids from school!

Pre-Conception Counseling: Role of Mercury

Suddenly I am seeing lots of women who want to conceive or are pregnant already.  I am also seeing scary numbers of women with high mercury levels.  When I was getting pregnent, the brilliant advice of the CDC was "limit how much fish you eat to once per week or less."  I don't find that satisfying.

If you have metal fillings in your mouth or you eat seafood regularly, there's a good chance you might be mercury toxic.  I was and didn't know it.  You see - I have a great love for sashimi.  I ate it once/week for about a year when my office was near a glorious sushi restaurant, and since I have no metal fillings, I wasn't too concerned. Then I tested and found I was toxic.

Symptoms? Fun things such as:

emotional rage

depression

mood swings

irritability

anxiety

brain fog 

dementia

Alzheimer's disease

senior moments

memory loss

heart irregularity

shortness of breath

blood pressure problems

dizziness

numbness tremors

vision/hearing problems

MS or ALS

recurring infections autoimmune conditions

chronic fatigue

allergies/asthma

gum problems

low thyroid function

cold extremitities

unexplained weight gain

low libido (for men - poor erections)

infertility

birth defects

headaches

insomnia

lack of energy

metallic taste

As my thinking about pre-conception counseling evolves, I am integrating the importance of assessment and detoxification from heavy metals such as mercury and toxins such as xenoestrogens, chemicals in the environment that act like estrogen in your body.

I tried a lot of different mercury detox programs over the past two years since I was first diagnosed and have a few favorites.  More on that later....

I am teaming up with two other extraordinary physicians to try to raise awareness among women especially of reproductive age -- Drs. Marsha Nunley, MD and Bruce Dooley, MD.  We are planning some educational programming in San Francisco for the fall.  Stay tuned!