Thyroid symptoms in fall and winter

Talk about thyroid function and how it changes in fall and winter. And there's three big things I want to address in this that are in the literature and studies, but also that I see in my clinical practice. Number one, a lot of people need an increase in thyroid medication in fall and winter. Their T3 reduces, meaning they don't activate as much of their hormones, so they need more of that. And two, their TSH increases, meaning their body is using more energy to produce thyroid hormones. So this means we need an increase in medication. Number two, in fall, winter, there is an increase in the severity and frequency of autoimmune diseases, specifically Hashimoto's for thyroid. If you're my patient, I probably told you this if you have Hashi every year in the winter, I see antibodies increase in adults. I see them increase in children in the summer, by the way. And so we want to combat this with being a little bit mindful about stress and about inflammatory foods, about drinking more frequently, more drinks in terms of alcohol. But that is definitely another shift. And you can track your antibodies to watch them improve. I see them increase fall, winter improve. March, April 3. Changes in metabolic potency then impact your thyroid. So in fall, winter, we see an increase in leptin and insulin resistance. Not only does this push you more into storing fat, holding on to fat, but that also reduces the activation of your thyroid hormones, interestingly enough, again leading to that reduction in T3, which, again, I think you can combat by eating well, intermittent fasting. You can also help to combat this by again increasing your thyroid medication. So kind of fascinating.