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I have thyroid nodules.....I understand that there are certain foods such as cruciferous vegetables that should not be eaten raw due to their goitrogenic effect on the thyroid and cause goiter or nodule to grow .....the link below explains this issue and lists the foods:
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Anyone?
Posts: 574 | From New Jersey | Registered: Feb 2004
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nefferdun
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I have thyroid nodules and have never heard of this. I am on Armour which controls the growth of the nodules. I do not take any precautions pertaining to food.
-------------------- old joke: idiopathic means the patient is pathological and the the doctor is an idiot Posts: 4676 | From western Montana | Registered: Apr 2009
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nefferdun
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I take my thyroid in the early morning and most of the foods listed are things I would not eat for breakfast. They are supposed to be safe when eaten 4 hours later than the medication. Maybe that is why I have never had a problem.
-------------------- old joke: idiopathic means the patient is pathological and the the doctor is an idiot Posts: 4676 | From western Montana | Registered: Apr 2009
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posted
These have long been known to be goitergens. So are beans, soy and other legumes, as well as nuts. Cooking calciferous veggies greatly reduces their goitergenicity. I'm a hypo and I don't restrict such things. If your diet is well rounded and healthy, an occasional fresh cabbage salad isn't going do much.
Old studies done before Synthroid found that if the thyroid replacement dose was near full replacement, nodules usually went away. One of the main causes of nodules is a thyroid dose that is too low, causing the impaired gland to have to make the extra thyroid needed by the body. This increases anti-thyroid antibody activity, resulting in increased damage to the gland from auto-immune attack. This can result in nodules, hot spots, or goiter. In the olden days before modern stupidity about thyroid treatment, doctors just gave near full replacement and often the nodules went away. If you shut down the gland completely, you usually shut down antibody attack, because the most common things attacked by anti-thyroid antibodies are the precursors of thyroid hormone. No precursors made - nothing for the antibodies to attack.
For the average person, total daily hormone production from the thyroid is equivalent to between 180 and 220 mcg of T4. Because of the feedback loop with the brain, it is impossible to become hyperthyroid on any dose less than your daily needs, except maybe if a person has hot nodules producing thyroid outside the brain's control.
If your daily needs are 180 mcg and you take 100 mcg, that means your pituitary will need to put out enough TSH to get the thyroid gland to make the extra 80 mcg that the body needs for a normal metabolism or to total 180.
Thyroid replacement is not additive. It does not add on top of your gland's production, but instead is factored in by the brain and TSH output is adjusted based on the amount you take. So, for example, if you take 175 mcg of thyroid, you can't become hyperthyroid, because the pituitary monitors blood levels of thyroid and adjusts TSH output accordingly. So a dose of 175 would cause the pituitary to drop TSH production to a tiny amount, since only 5 mcg more is needed by the body from the gland. The pituitary is constantly monitoring and adjusting TSH output based on how much thyroid is in the blood and what it thinks the body needs over that.
My point is that there is actually a very wide range of doses that are safe and you can increase quite a lot. When the dose is minuscule, which they are frequently these days, that puts lots of work on a sick thyroid gland. There are bound to be consequences.
Please feel free to assume my comments here are not credible. You can research some of it yourself by getting older Werner and Ingbar's "The Thyroid." Edna Kyrie had a wonderful site called thyroidhistory.net with loads of older research papers, but the site now seems to be down or gone.
Tish
Posts: 31 | From TX | Registered: Nov 2008
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nefferdun
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Tish, that is so informative!
I just found out that I have antibodies to my thyroid. I have taken Armour for years to prevent the enlargement of the nodules but never knew why.
I was given radiation to shrink my adnoids when I was a child which can cause thyroid cancer and brain tumors. That is another reason for the preventive measures.
-------------------- old joke: idiopathic means the patient is pathological and the the doctor is an idiot Posts: 4676 | From western Montana | Registered: Apr 2009
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Nefferdun, I'n not on any thyroid meds...my endo does not think I need it at this time although TSH level fluctuates to what is considered the high normal limit.
Tish, thank you for the interesting historical perspective.... I understand that the pituitary gland adjusts the TSH production based on what the body needs ....but what if the pituitary is not functioning properly, as is probably the case with some of us?
Posts: 574 | From New Jersey | Registered: Feb 2004
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