Dr. Tabatha Barber breaks down why thyroid problems develop: missing nutrients like iodine and amino acids, inflammation blocking hormone conversion, autoimmune attack, and halogens from processed foods that compete with iodine. T4 needs four iodines to form, T3 needs three, so bromine and fluoride can sabotage the whole system.
Here's the deal. Thyroids were not made to just poop out and stop working. That is not how God created our bodies. Our bodies are meant to be amazing and keep, maintain homeostasis and stay in balance. And our thyroid is our master gland. It will take on the burden of your other systems at the detriment of itself to keep your overall balance of your body. So this is a really key, important concept to understand is if you are struggling with hypothyroid issues or you've been told you have hypothyroidism, there is a reason. Thyroids don't just stop making thyroid hormone because they're tired of making thyroid hormone. They, they don't make thyroid hormone in sufficient quantities because they don't have the ingredients, meaning they don't have the amino acids or the iodine or the vitamins necessary for that production. Or they don't have the ability to convert the thyroid hormone that they've made to utilize it. Or the cell can't hear the signal because the cell is inflamed, or you're making too much reverse T3. So that's what I wanted to answer today. So if you've been diagnosed with hypothyroidism or you think you have hypothyroidism, find out why and you will ask your doctor and you will probably get, I don't know, you just have a sluggish thyroid. You might get. Well, it could be an autoimmune process, but there's really no point in checking that because there's nothing to do about it. Those are the most common responses. Those are responses I myself gave as a conventional doctor back in the day. Apologize for that, because that's not true. We do know that it's very important to know if you have an autoimmune attack on your thyroid, meaning your own immune system is attacking your thyroid. That needs to be stopped. And once that stops, your thyroid can probably function again and you don't need thyroid support with thyroid hormone. Other reasons for your thyroid to not be functioning well is is your adrenal glands are working over time or they are no longer producing the cortisol and the DHEA that you need them to anymore. It could be that your sex hormones are imbalanced, like your estrogen, progesterone and testosterone. It could be that you have a high toxic burden if too much lead in your system or mercury or mycotoxins from mold. It could be you're getting exposed to too much of halogens in your water, so fluoride in your toothpaste and in your water competes with iodine. So let me back up a minute, because thyroid hormone T4 is 4 iodines, T3 is 3 iodines, T2 is 2 iodines. And so an iodine is a halogen. And if you remember back to high school chemistry, halogens are all in the same column on the periodic table. Those include fluoride, chlorine, bromine, iodine. Those other halogens can compete for the spots where your iodine is trying to go to make your thyroid hormone. Bromine in particular, is in high quantities in our processed foods, especially like breakfast cereals and all those processed grains in the boxes and in the bags, they actually add bromine as a preservative. It's high levels in Mountain Dew and just so much processed food. So your processed food could be causing your hypothyroidism. I know that was definitely contributing to mine. But another big piece was chlorine. So I swam a lot. I was in a lot of chlorine a lot of the time. And that can compete with your iodine and then fluoride, like I mentioned, and your toothpaste. When I was growing up, we had fluoride swishes every Friday at school. We had, you know, fluoride treatments at the dentist, all of these things. And so I had all of those halogens competing with my iodine for my thyroid production.
