Every individual with Hashimotos has several questions about their disease and feels frustrated with the lack of scientific information that's available. Their doctor offers little encouragement and often the only remedy that's given is a prescription for a thyroid medication. People want to know why they have Hashimotos, what its origin is, and what they can do to treat it. I advise them that the first step is to become educated..
To understand Hashimotos we have to return to the time before the white cells of the immune system got activated. This was the first stage of thyroid inflammation, one step prior to Hashimotos. Hashimotos is also known as Hashimotos Thyroiditis because this condition is one of thyroid inflammation. The question that must be answered then is, "What was the original cause of this inflammation?" If we can find the answer then we can address the condition of Hashimotos.
How thyroid hormones are put together by thyroid cells is a little bit like the assembly line of the car manufacturing industry. Each step is followed by another, each in a specific succession. There is one part in the assembly that, if it fails will create thyroid inflammation.
One trace mineral called iodine is an essential ingredient in thyroid hormones. If there is insufficient iodine then thyroid cells are unable to make adequate amounts of their hormones. Yet thyroid cells do not absorb iodine. They can only absorb iodide which is very similar to iodine yet completely worthless for the making of thyroid hormones.
So our thyroid cells absorb iodide which can be transformed into iodine. How do thyroid cells do this? Thyroid cells are able to make a chemical that turns iodide into iodine which can then be used to make thyroid hormones. This catalyst is made of water and an extra atom of oxygen and is called hydrogen peroxide. This step of iodide being changed to iodine is a little difficult to imagine but hydrogen peroxide simply removes an electron from the iodide which forms iodine. Simple and elegant.
So the next question is, "What stimulates thyroid cells to make hydrogen peroxide"? And what if there's some reason that could stimuate too much hydrogen peroxide production inside thyroid cells? The only way that thyroid cells can make hydrogen peroxide is when they are stimulated by a hormone called TSH or thyroid stimulating hormone. When TSH in the blood goes up then thyroid cells will produce more and more hydrogen peroxide. What might be the cause of increased levels of TSH? It's when circulating thyroid hormones are low. So a decrease in thyroid hormones causes an an increase in TSH.
So the crux or the origin of thyroid inflammation is the lowered production of thyroid hormones leading to an increase in TSH which triggers the producion of hydrogen peroxide within thyroid cells. So what causes a decline in the production of thyroid hormones?
Here is the problem and the underlying reason for thyroid inflammation. The one step of converting iodide into iodine along the production line of making thyroid hormones will be inhibited when there's an iodide deficiency. In this case the production of thyroid hormones will decline and when thyroid hormones are low, TSH will increase. This increased TSH will continue to stimulate thyroid cells to make too much hydrogen peroxide. So as long as there's not enough iodide this H2O2 will stay elevated since thyroid hormone production has gone down resulting in elevated TSH.
Why does elevated hydrogen peroxide inside thyroid cells lead to problems? Hydrogen peroxide is an irritant leading to inflammation and, in general, when tisues are inflammed their life span is shortened. Eventually, if hydrogen peroxide levels remain high over a period of time, maybe many years and even decades, these thyroid cells split apart releasingthe enzyme Thyroperoxidase and the protein Thyroglobulin. This triggers our immune system to develop white cells that are specific to this enzyme and protein. Now a person has gone from simple inflammation of the thyroid to this auto-immune condition of Hashimotos.
How to reverse this, how to reduce thyroid antibodies, must address thyroid inflammation by lowering TSH.
