Understanding Thyroid Hormone Production

This is your thyroid. And it produces T4. And I wish they would have a brain picture up here. This is from the Institute for Functional Medicine. I appreciate this. The brain secretes tsh. That's the main blood draw that your doctor will check to tell you whether your thyroid is functioning. And TSH is thyroid stimulating hormone. It's actually a brain hormone, not even a thyroid hormone. TSH comes down from the brain, tells the thyroid, make more or less T4. Your thyroid hopefully will make T4 if you have enough iron, iodine, tyrosine, zinc, selenium, vitamin E, B2, B3, B6, C and D, you need all of that. Things that inhibit thyroid hormone production are chronic stress or cortisol production, infections, trauma, radiation, medicines, flu, fluoride, like I mentioned, all those halogens, toxins, like pesticide in your food, mercury, cadmium, lead, autoimmune processes. So not just an attack directly on your thyroid, but an autoimmune attack at all in anywhere in your body can prevent your thyroid from making thyroid hormones. So say you have celiac disease or lupus or rheumatoid, something like that. So T4 has to go down and be activated in T3. T3 will bind to all the millions of cell receptors and send the signal to increase your metabolism or decrease it. Increase your thermostat, decrease it, do all of those processes that your thyroid does, managing the body. You have to have adequate amounts of selenium and zinc for this conversion to happen. And then at the cellular level, you have to have adequate amounts of vitamin A, zinc, to hear the cell signal. And you have to have healthy mitochondria. Mitochondria are the little powerhouses inside your cells that create energy, and those are healthiest and functioning and reproducing from exercise. So exercise is key to thyroid function and hearing signals from your thyroid hormone.