Gluten May Be Slowly Destroying Your Thyroid!

If you pay any attention at all to the health world, you’ve heard about the recent gluten-free craze. It’s everywhere. Celebrities have gone for a gluten free diet to improve their health, and there are gluten-free alternatives to just about everything under the Sun. But, really, what is the big deal with gluten? If it’s in many of the foods that we have been eating for hundreds of years, how can it be bad?

What is Gluten?

Gluten is an organic component of wheat and many other cereal grains like rye, spelt, kamut, and barley. Its stickiness (like glue) makes it great for baking, because it helps keeps your bread together. Gluten is made up of two protein-containing fractions – gliadin and glutenin. Many experts believe the gliadin portion is the cause of most sensitivities to gluten, but glutenin may also play a role.

Some estimate that up to a third of the US population is sensitive to gluten based on the presence of antibodies to gluten in the blood or stool. But there’s more to it than that!

When the immune system makes antibodies to the gluten, the antibodies sometimes “mistake” their own body for the gluten, and attack it. This is an autoimmune condition known as Celiac disease which can lead to symptoms like gas, bloating, abdominal pain, diarrhea, skin and joint inflammation, and “brain fog”, or difficulty thinking clearly. It’s nasty stuff.

But some will get these same symptoms from gluten without having Celiac disease. These people are considered to have a “gluten intolerance”, but the symptoms can be just as severe.

How can Gluten cause Harm?

Celiac disease and gluten intolerance certainly cause inflammatory reactions in the digestive tract, causing the digestive symptoms that I mentioned earlier.  But it’s more than just symptoms. It can cause some long-term damage as well.

When you damage your digestive tract, it’s like going on vacation with your front door open. Undigested food particles, including the gluten, can pass through your damaged intestinal barrier and cause inflammatory reactions in other parts of the body, like the airways, joints, skin, and brain. On top of that, bacteria and fungus normally present in your gut can also get through and ramp up the inflammation even more.  Yikes!

What about my Thyroid?

Your thyroid might seem like the farthest thing away from your digestive tract, but they’re intimately connected.

If your immune system is making antibodies to the gluten that you’re eating, those antibodies will travel through the blood and reach almost your entire body.

And if those antibodies come across a part of your body that contains proteins that look sort of like gluten does, they will react with those proteins as if they were gluten.  Once a reaction occurs, the immune system goes into overdrive, trying to destroy that part of the body that it thinks is gluten. Sadly, to the immune system, parts of your thyroid gland look like gluten.

If you have Celiac disease or a gluten intolerance, there is a good chance your thyroid is slowly being destroyed by your own immune system!  In fact, many people with autoimmune thyroid conditions, like Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and Graves’ disease, have anti-gluten antibodies in their blood.

How can I protect my Thyroid? 

It is possible to get tested for Celiac disease and even gluten intolerance.  Blood antibody tests are usually enough to diagnose Celiac disease.  Gluten intolerance can more easily detected by testing the stool for anti-gluten antibodies.  If you test positive for antibodies against gluten, it is crucial to remove gluten from your diet.

But testing isn’t always conclusive.  In my opinion, the best way to test for gluten intolerance is to remove gluten completely from the diet for at least 3 months.  Even a small amount of gluten can trigger antibody production and perpetuate the inflammatory reaction, so really, it’s ALL gotta go!

If you have a history of thyroid disease, this is an important part of discovering the cause(s) of it.  If your thyroid problems are at least partly due to gluten intolerance, symptoms often improve after eliminating gluten.  At least one study with Celiac patients that also had hypothyroidism has shown this to be the case.

Your thyroid is an important part of your body’s endocrine system.  It determines how much energy you have and how much weight you carry.  If you don’t care for it, your health will suffer.  There are many ways to support your thyroid.  Make sure that you’re not working against that, by eating something that might be poisoning it!

Until next time, this is Dr. Pat Nardini, ND, putting “Your Wellness First!”