Prepare to have your health questions answered
here on Safe, Effective Natural Solutions with
Dr. Todd Binkley, owner of Binkley Healing Center
in downtown Ventura. Now, here's Dr. Todd. Good
afternoon. I'm Dr. Todd Binkley, board -certified
doctor of non -force chiropractic and practitioner
of functional medicine. Today, I'm going to be
talking about thyroid conditions. I'm going to
do a really exciting case study of a woman, a
48 -year -old woman with hyperthyroidism, overproduction
of thyroid hormone. But whenever I talk about
thyroid conditions, 90 % of the time, We're thinking
about hypothyroidism. Underproduction of the
thyroid is much more common. 90 plus percent
of the time, if someone has a thyroid condition,
it's very likely to be low thyroid. And this
is just underdiagnosed all the time. Millions
of women are not getting the care they need who
have fatigue. difficulty losing weight, swelling
in the hands and the feet, cold hands and feet,
hair loss, dry skin. It can even raise your cholesterol
levels, in fact. So it's really important to
identify whether or not you even have borderline
hypothyroid because it can make a world of difference.
And I've just seen this with thousands and thousands
of mostly women over the past 35 years. And so
if you've never had your thyroid properly checked,
most doctors just test TSH. thyroid simulating
hormone. And they figure if that's normal, your
pituitary is not telling your thyroid gland to
make more thyroid, then you're probably fine.
Well, TSH is a useful test, but it doesn't give
you the whole picture by itself. It's important
to get a full panel of thyroid tests, especially
free. T3, when you hear about women who have
hypothyroidism and are taking thyroid medication,
it's almost always the same. Synthroid, levothyroxine
is just the standard T4 thyroxine, the main hormone
produced by the thyroid gland. The problem with
that is T4 doesn't do anything in the body. It
must be converted into the active form. T3, and
some of that T3 must be unbound from its carrier
protein into free T3. So free T3 is what actually
executes all the functions of thyroid hormone
in the body. And most doctors never test that.
They just assume that if your thyroid is normal,
or even if just your pituitary secreted thyroid
stimulating hormone is normal, that you're fine.
So it's important to test free T3, especially
because a lot of women, even if they're on medication
or if they're just borderline low thyroid or
if their thyroid tests look normal, but they
still have the symptoms of low thyroid, it's
often because maybe they're still producing adequate
thyroxin, the main thyroid hormone, T4, but they're
not converting it adequately into free T3. This
is very common and very commonly undiagnosed.
So, I'll be doing a talk on this and presenting
some case histories on many patients I've seen
with hypothyroidism and how much better they
feel after we resolve that in a live presentation
at my office. So, mark your calendars. I hope
you can join me on December 3rd. That's a Wednesday
evening at 6 p .m. I'm doing a presentation like
this on the first Wednesday of every month now.
Last month, we did toxins. And this month, December
3rd, 6 p .m. on a Wednesday evening, we'll be
doing a talk about hypothyroidism. I'll talk
a little bit about hyperthyroidism as well, but
mostly about hypothyroidism. I'll do a 30 -minute
keynote presentation. We'll have some light refreshments.
And then we'll have as much time as you want
for questions. and answers. So I'd love to meet
you face -to -face, answer any questions you
have, bring family and friends. We had a really
good turnout last month for our toxins and looking
forward to a good turnout this coming Wednesday
in a couple of weeks, December 3rd. Wednesday
at 6 p .m. live in my office in downtown Ventura.
So today I'm going to talk about hyper, a case
study, a specific patient that I had with hyperthyroidism,
overproduction of thyroid, which is much less
common but always interesting, partly just because
it's less common. This is a 48 -year -old woman
who had been diagnosed with hyper... thyroidism
in her 20s. She also had two members of her family
that had been diagnosed with Graves' disease.
The most common type of hyperthyroidism is the
autoimmune kind called Graves' disease. And when
she went to her doctor back then when she was
in her 20s, he recommended removal of the entire
thyroid gland. And that's just ridiculous how
many times I've heard that when it's totally
unnecessary. Just cut the thyroid gland out.
We can just give you thyroid medication for the
rest of your life. No problem. You don't need
your thyroid gland. We'll just give you the drugs.
Well, she didn't want to do that. Instead, she
took medication for it for a year and dedicated
herself to maintaining her own health. And she
actually got it with the meds and just taking
better care of herself. She got it completely
under control. And she did this while undergoing
the significant stress of going through med school
at the time. She was in medical school in her
home country when this happened. And she got
rid of it. She got it to complete remission after
about a year. Got off the meds. Continued to
have regular blood tests. And then more recently.
a year or two ago, found out a few months ago
that it had come back. So most problems with
the thyroid, whether it's underactive or overactive,
are usually the result of an autoimmune condition
where your body is overproducing antibodies that
create inflammation and eventually scar tissue
in the thyroid gland. And this disrupts the ability
of that gland to produce thyroid hormones. autoimmune
hypothyroid, autoimmune low thyroid is called
Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and autoimmune hyperthyroid
overproduction is called Graves' disease. So
this patient was already diagnosed with Graves'
disease, and she was trained as a medical doctor
in her home country, but was not licensed to
practice here. She also knew she didn't want
to take drugs again, so that's why she came to
me. And I often describe Functional medicine
as a means of identifying earlier signs of disease
before it becomes a full -blown medical condition
that requires medical care, mainly pharmaceuticals,
with all of their perils and sometimes amazing
benefits, but usually side effects as well. So
she was a trained physician, and she already
knew from what she saw there and what she'd been
recommended before that she didn't want to do
that unless she absolutely had to. Well, this
case was definitely a full -blown medical condition
that most doctors would recommend medication
for immediately. In America, they wouldn't recommend
that they just cut her thyroid out immediately,
not as a first step, but they would definitely
recommend that she take medication to suppress
the overproduction of thyroid hormone. Hyperthyroidism
can be dangerous when it gets out of control.
It can cause cardiac arrhythmias. especially
atrial fibrillation, and in older patients, even
heart failure. It can cause unintended weight
loss, nervousness, hyperactivity, irritability,
increased sweating, fatigue, very commonly fatigue.
It also dramatically increases the risk of osteoporosis,
loss of bone density, and it can cause weakness,
insomnia, diarrhea, and a host of symptoms in
the eyes. which we're going to come back to,
it's often initially diagnosed based on some
of these symptoms, blood work, and a good physical
exam. Both hyper and hypo thyroidism can cause
a goiter, which means an enlargement of the thyroid
gland, which is easy to feel in the neck. Easy
for a doctor to feel. Patients often don't notice
they have it in the beginning. But eventually
it can get so big that you can easily see it,
sometimes even from across the room. And hyperthyroidism
can also famously cause the eyes to bulge. This
is the condition that the actor Marty Feldman
had. Marty Feldman was the bug -eyed British
actor who played Igor in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein
in 1974. So not everyone with hyperthyroidism
gets their bulging eyes like that. things that
can happen if it gets out of control. So blood
tests clearly show, when you run the blood work
on someone with a suspected thyroid condition,
the blood work will clearly show overproduction
of thyroid hormones and a drastically lowered
thyroid stimulating hormone, which is the pituitary
hormone that controls the thyroid. If your thyroid
is low, your pituitary hormone, TSH, will go
up, telling your thyroid to make more. And if
it's high, then... It will do the opposite. So
if you're lucky, your doctor will also order
thyroid antibodies tests. Okay, most doctors
will order thyroid antibody tests if they suspect
hyperthyroidism, but far too few of them ever
order antibody tests for the millions of women
that have hypothyroidism. But I digress. The
diagnosis of hyperthyroidism is confirmed with
an ultrasound. which shows the exact dimensions
of the enlarged gland, and any nodules or scar
tissue that may have formed in it, which indicates
the severity of the disease. The more scar tissue
you have, or especially if you have any larger
than a certain size nodules, then the worse the
prognosis for the hyperthyroidism, the more likely
you'll have symptoms. The activity and aggressiveness
of the disease is evaluated by a thyroid scan.
And this is where the gland is injected with
a radioactive tracer that produces a different
type of image that shows increased functional
activity in the parts of the gland that are overproducing,
overproducing the thyroid hormone. So this patient's
ultrasound showed a 53 % enlargement and a chickpea
-sized nodule in the left lobe of the thyroid
gland. And the thyroid scan confirmed the diagnosis
of grave disease. It showed diffuse changes throughout
the gland consistent with abnormally increased
activity. And this is just the inflammatory process
that eventually produces scar tissue and enlargement
of the gland. I'm Dr. Todd Bankley. You're listening
to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions to Almost
Any Health Challenge. Today we're talking about
a specific case of mine, a patient, a 48 -year
-old woman with hyper... Thyroidism, Graves'
disease, overactive thyroid, which can cause
a lot of problems. It can be dangerous if it's
uncontrolled. And she had been diagnosed with
this originally in her 20s, and now it's come
back in her late 40s. And she wants to try and
get it under control without medication. Well,
when I saw her blood test, I told her that there
was a very good chance she would need to go back
on the medication. Because her thyroid -stimulating
hormone was... 0 .005, 100 times lower than the
lower limit of normal, basically barely detectable.
Her free T3, the active form of thyroid hormone,
was nearly double the upper limit of normal.
Her thyroid peroxidase antibodies, some of this
is kind of technical, but it'll make sense here
eventually. were over five times the upper limit
of normal. And thyrotropin receptor antibody,
this is just another antibody that's the most
important. These are the antibodies that your
body overproduces when you have an autoimmune
thyroid condition. So thyrotropin receptor antibody
is the most important one for hyperthyroidism.
And it was 8 .04, which is also five and a half
times the upper limit of normal. She also had
some elevated liver enzymes, one of which was
twice the upper limit of normal. Her protein
levels were low, and protein is essential to
heal and repair every tissue in the body, so
I'm always looking at protein levels on every
patient. And her white blood cell count was only
3 .7, which was low because of the chronic stress
on her immune system. I also tested her serum
iodine levels. She had been taking a relatively
high dose of iodine for a while and wondered
whether that was helpful. or perhaps even part
of the problem. And she's not alone in being
confused about this. And every situation is different.
Iodine can often help a thyroid condition, especially
hypothyroid, but even sometimes hyperthyroid.
So her iodine level was right at the upper limit
of the healthy functional range when we tested
it. So I didn't recommend that she supplement
it anymore. But I also was able to confirm or
tell her, assure her that it was unlikely that
what she was taking had aggravated her condition
in any way. The upper limit of the healthy range
is right where we want it. On the plus side,
she looked fantastic. She was fit, otherwise
super healthy. She took great care of herself.
She ate a great diet. She regularly exercised.
She busied herself with a rewarding career. And
even though she was thin, she had the musculature
of an athlete. So she was also highly motivated
to do whatever it takes to reverse this disease
without drugs. Some minor symptoms that she had,
she was a little hyperactive, but said that she'd
always been that way since childhood. She had
no heart palpitations, no hypersensitivity to
heat, no sweating, no significant little bit
of fatigue. no appetite changes, no weakness,
and no eye symptoms. That's usually later. She
did have a rash on her lower legs, which is common
with most autoimmune conditions, and she wasn't
sleeping very well. So given the mildness of
her symptoms and her otherwise general good health,
I suggested we put her on an intensive program
for four months to flood her body with nutrients
and then retest to see how she's doing. I made
sure she understood that if her numbers weren't
significantly improved in four months, that she
would have to consider going on medication, at
least in the short term. And this is important
because this, like many conditions, may warrant
taking medication for a few weeks, a few months,
to get a raging condition under control. And
then after that, there may be a very good chance
that you can get off the medication and heal
things naturally yourself with proper support.
So autoimmune conditions are almost always driven
in part by exposure to toxins, which is why people
with autoimmune conditions often develop a rash
somewhere on the body. The skin is an organ of
elimination. And when it's struggling to flush
out mold, chemical, and heavy metal toxins, a
rash, a few little spots, many, many spots that
merge together, redness, itchy, dry skin, or
damp, oozing pustules, any kind of rash. is often
the result. Most autoimmune conditions start
in the gut, where stress, lousy diets, and a
host of other things result in too many bad bacteria
and not enough good bacteria in the gut, or this
is called dysbiosis. An inflammatory process
that results can allow foreign debris to leak
into the bloodstream where it doesn't belong
and then can migrate everywhere throughout your
body. And this creates legitimate targets for
your immune system to try and destroy. So your
body's overproducing these antibodies for a reason.
It's rightly seeing foreign debris in places
it doesn't belong and is trying to attack and
destroy that debris. And your healthy tissue,
in this case in the thyroid gland, gets caught
in the crossfire. So if we want to address this
and do a good job without giving her a fighting
chance to not end up on medication, we're going
to need some more tests. So in addition to reviewing
her scans and ordering some more extensive blood
work, I also ordered a chemical toxins panel.
which showed a high body burden of several significant
chemical toxins. Bisphenol S, the synthetic plastic
commonly found in drink containers, water bottles,
toys, cosmetics, and the lining of cans of food,
is a known endocrine disruptor, meaning it interferes
with your endocrine organs, including, of course,
the thyroid gland. Many people have heard of
bisphenol A. which it raised so many health concerns
that most companies removed it from their products
and now promote them as BPA -free. Well, this
means that if it's still plastic, this means
they replaced it usually with another nearly
identical plastic like bisphenol S, slightly
different chemical, which causes almost all of
the same problems. So this patient had high bisphenol
S. He also had high xylene, which is widely used
in industry and medical laboratories. We're also
constantly exposed to it through automobile exhaust
and a variety of consumer products like cigarette
smoke, paints, varnish, rust, preservatives,
rust preventatives, and shellac. Long -term effects
of exposure to xylene can damage the liver and
the kidneys. She also had high perchlorate in
her system, not to be confused with perchloroethylene,
which is the toxic solvent you may have heard
of that was used in dry cleaning. This is perchlorate.
Perchlorate is a chemical used in fireworks.
road flares, explosives, and rocket fuel. And
it enters the food supply through contaminated
water used for irrigation and food processing.
It's also found in milk from the presence of
perchlorate in animal feed. And it famously disrupts
thyroid function by inhibiting thyroid uptake
of iodine. Well, even worse, these were the ones
that were high. She had very high levels. of
something called, this is a mouthful, phenylglyoxalic
acid. This is from exposure to the plastics,
styrene, and the chemical ethylbenzene. So styrene
is a plastic that's widely used to make plastics
and rubber, which are manufactured into products
like insulation, pipes, automobile parts, printing
cartridges, food containers, carpeting. Exposure
often occurs through food, especially fatty foods
heated in styrene containers like microwaving
frozen dinners, and also through just breathing
indoor air with styrene vapors from building
materials, photocopiers, tobacco smoke, and many
other products. It is a known neurotoxin, reproductive
toxin, and increases the risk of certain cancers
like leukemia and lymphoma. So this patient also
had... A very high body burden of, here's another
mouthful, dichlorophenoxyacetic acid. This is
one of the most widely used herbicides in the
world for agriculture and landscaping. And it
is also a known endocrine disruptor. So we definitely
found some chemicals that are directly related
to her symptoms. I also ordered a heavy metals
test. Because heavy metals are things that we're
all exposed to, and some of them can directly
affect thyroid function. And her results came
back and showed elevated lead, mercury, and especially
uranium. Well, ding, ding, ding. Iodine competes
for binding sites on cells with uranium, which
is why iodine supplementation is a common treatment
for uranium exposure. And if their body's constantly
fighting with that, it's going to disrupt thyroid
function. So this was further confirmation that
this smart patient had been wisely choosing to
take supplemental iodine in just the right amount.
And the big takeaway here is most doctors never
test for any of these things because they usually
have no training in how to properly test for
them. And they know that they're ubiquitous in
the environment. So they figure even if they
do show up on some test, what are you going to
do about it? Well, when you identify an increased
body burden of these things in a patient, it
will hopefully, usually motivate them to do several
things. Number one, exercise more intensely.
Sweating is one of the main ways your body continually
flushes out toxins that you're constantly exposed
to. And these toxins are part of the reason you
smell bad when you sweat. Sweating out toxins
is free. Number two, do saunas. People often
notice that their sweat smells metallic. when
they do saunas. And this is because saunas are
very effective at increasing your body's ability
to flush out toxins. Eating better food with
minerals that your body depends on to effectively
excrete toxins helps because most people are
deficient in minerals. And the main source of
minerals that you need are in vegetables, especially
dark green leafy vegetables like spinach, kale,
broccoli, etc. And fourthly, mainly the thing
that I help people with when we do these testing
and they have a severe body burden like this
patient did, is you can take supplements that
increase your body's ability to safely excrete
these toxins to permanently remove them from
your body. So mineral -rich plant sources like
chlorella and cilantro can help. Binding agents
like charcoal, zeolite clay, fulvic, and humic
acid. Antioxidants that support liver detoxification
like glutathione, alpha -lipoic acid, and acetylcysteine,
and others. One of my favorites is called Pectisol,
which is modified citrus pectin. And this is
the sponge -like pith from orange peels, specially
processed in a way that it enables it to easily
cross cell membranes, bind toxins, and escort
them to the kidneys where they can be flushed
out in the urine. So I recommended several of
these things for this hyperthyroidism patient.
I also ordered a stool test. Now remember, this
is a very fit, outwardly perfectly healthy 48
-year -old woman who has no gastrointestinal
symptoms, no gas, no bloating, nausea, constipation,
or diarrhea at all. But she already knew why
I wanted to order a stool test because she listened
to past episodes of this show and learned something
that she was never taught in medical school.
Most autoimmune conditions start in the gut,
and natural healing of them is rarely effective
without addressing the gut and restoring a healthy
gut microbiome. So her stool test showed very
mild dysbiosis, slight deficiency in a few important
beneficial bacteria, and a mild to moderate increase
in a number of bacteria that could cause problems.
She also had slightly elevated yeast shown under
the microscope. And these results basically show
two things. She doesn't have raging out -of -control
gut inflammation or super high levels of bad
bacteria. Both of these things make her prognosis
better. And given this and her general health,
other factors are likely the primary drivers
of her current autoimmunity, especially the toxins
that we just talked about. So what did we do?
Well, I recommended some basic nutrients to optimize
general health, which I do for everyone. A good
multivitamin to provide essential minerals that
are usually lacking. Vitamin D and vitamin K2
for immune system support and prevention of osteoporosis
that she's at risk of. Fish oil for omega -3
fatty acids that everyone needs for general health,
reducing inflammation and protecting the cardiovascular
system. I also recommended some betaine hydrochloric
acid to help her stomach absorb more of the good
protein she was already eating. I recommended
a good probiotic and some prebiotic fiber and
antioxidants to feed the healthy bacteria in
her gut and a natural antimicrobial to kill off
the excessive yeast. I also recommended some
L -carnitine and magnesium with malic acid to
protect the heart, reduce nervousness and insomnia,
and modified citrus pectin and binding agents
that I spoke about earlier to help flush out
the toxins we discovered. I also recommended
she was already taking chlorella that she had
begun to recommend. She continued that. I recommended
a product. called loracetin, which is one of
my favorite products for immune system support
that reliably boosts low white cell counts. Well,
we did follow -up blood work four months later,
and the results were amazing. But we're about
out of time, so you'll have to tune in next week
to find out the details, because they are lengthy.
It takes a little bit to describe everything
that happened, and they are really exciting.
I've never done that before. Sorry, this was
a long case history, but it's an exciting one.
So I hope you will tune in next week. In the
meantime, I'll remind you again, please join
me Wednesday, December 3rd at 6 p .m. for a live
presentation in my office about thyroid conditions.
I'll do a 30 -minute PowerPoint presentation.
We'll have some light refreshments and plenty
of time for answering any questions you may have.
Have a fantastic weekend. You've been listening
to Safe, Effective Natural Solutions with Dr.
Todd Binkley. If you have a health question you
want discussed on the show, email your health
questions to drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter
.com. Take advantage of this opportunity to ask
questions for yourself and for your loved ones
because our health matters. Join him next Friday
at 2 p .m. for safe, effective natural solutions
here on 98 .3 FM, The Word.