Thyroid and Related Disorders. A clear Picture!

How often do you think about what's going on inside your body? If you have a tendency to think and act only when something goes wrong, you are wistfully inviting more trouble. There are thousands or even more chemicals being born within our body daily and thyroid is another common name in the gallery. You must be aware of how significant the name 'thyroid' is when it comes to health and wellness and how critical is it's involvement in degradation of health. 

We know that prevention is better than cure but seldom do we recall that without proper information there is no prevention possible. Today's post will share all you need to know about thyroid and issues surrounding it.

What is Thyroid?

If you are already aware of the endocrine system in the human body, you can easily recall the location of thyroid gland. Thyroid is a butterfly shaped gland located right above the voice box in the neck. It secretes hormones that regulate metabolism in our body. 

Thyroid Disorders

Though, thyroid is a very important hormone and is responsible for growth and maturation of the human body, an under-active or an over-active thyroid can lead to several health issues, problem of weight management being the most prominent. 

Following are the symptoms of under active thyroid

• weight gain
• fatigue
• dry skin
• constipation
• intolerance to cold

Following are the symptoms of over active thyroid

• weight loss
• nervousness
• increased heart rate
• diarrhea
• intolerance to heat

Thyroid Detection and Test Report

Consider two medical cases

• A woman with issues of weight gain, fatigue and constipation visiting a doctor
• A man visiting a doctor complaining of unexpected weight loss, sleep disorder and diarrhea

Though, these are two exactly opposite cases yet, the doctor opts to diagnose both using the same blood test. This blood test basically determines whether the thyroid gland is working properly or not. The blood test I am referring to here, is called Thyroid Stimulating Hormone(TSH) test. To understand this better one needs to understand the functioning of the thyroid gland. Here is a short elucidation on how things work in coordination for thyroid production. 

• The "master-gland" also called the "pituitary-gland" keeps a check on the amount of thyroid in the blood.
• Pituitary-gland tells the thyroid-gland to increase or decrease the production of thyroid hormones so as to maintain a balanced amount at any point of time. Pituitary-gland releases more TSH if thyroid level is to be increased and it stops producing TSH when the thyroid level needs to be decreased. Sensing the amount of TSH in the blood, the thyroid gland produces more or less thyroidal hormones.
• The thyroid gland needs "Iodine" to make the thyroid hormone. Sea-food and dairy products are a good source of "iodine".

• The thyroid gland makes 3 hormones namely

• Triiodothyronine (T3) & Thyroxine (T4) - These hormones together control and regulate your metabolism. They are also responsible for body temperature, growth and development rate, heart rate etc.

• Calcitonin - This hormone is responsible for deposition of calcium in bones. When there is extra calcium floating in your bloodstream, calcitonin is released by the thyroid gland to tell the calcium to leave the blood and head towards your bones.

Now, let us see how TSH test can be used to determine thyroid disorders. If you have a high level of TSH in your blood, you might have an under-active thyroid. Does that sound confusing? Let us try to understand this with some more clarity. If your thyroid gland is under-active and is non capable of producing enough thyroid hormones, your pituitary-gland secretes more TSH to instruct your thyroid-gland to work harder. Therefore, an under-active thyroid-gland is accompanied by a high TSH level in the blood. The opposite is true as a lower level of TSH often indicates an overactive thyroid.

The normal range of thyroid for an adult should be (0.4 - 4.0) mIU/L. If your TSH test results under performs when compared to this range, you may find yourself at a risk of hyperthyroidism(over-active thyroid) and if your TSH readings rise higher than the norm, you may be at a risk of hypothyroidism(under-active thyroid).

Dealing With Thyroid Disorders

If you ever have a thyroid disorder, your doctor would prescribe you some medication. In case you are diagnosed with hyperthyroidism, you would need to take anti-thyroid medications that can help to regulate thyroid production whereas to supplement lack of thyroid when you are diagnosed with hypothyroidism, you would take synthetic thyroxine medications that would help stimulate hormone production. 

Besides medication, it would be advisable to make following changes in nutrition:

• Hyperthyroidism patients should avoid food with too much Iodine(sea food, dairy products) and include anti inflammatory herbs like basil,rosemary in their diet. 
• People suffering from Hypothyroidism should ensure proper Iodine intake and should keep a check on the amount of gluten(wheat) and casein(dairy cream/milk) in their diet. A gluten free diet is a remedy for hypothyroidism. 
• Proper nutrition, regular exercise and physical activities should be a part of your regime if you want to keep healthy lifelong.