February 15, 2025 • 59 mins
Dr. Amie Hornaman aka “The Thyroid-Fixer”, is host to the top-rated podcast in medicine and alternative health: The Thyroid Fixer™, with listeners around the globe. She is the founder of The Better Thyroid and Hormone Institute, an organization with transformational, proven approaches to address thyroid dysfunction and support you in returning to full health. With the ability to prescribe thyroid and bioidentical hormone replacement to all 50 states and most of Canada, Dr. Amie and her team provide personalized, regenerative care and put you, the patient, first.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Well, this is Michelle Hughes from Ageless and Timeless with
a very bad cold today. But I wasn't going to
cancel this incredible interview because I've been looking forward to
meeting and talking with Amy, doctor Amy Horneman, who is
the thyroid Fixer.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
And many of you have heard of Amy.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
She's very well known on the Internet and also for
her work with the thyroid, which it's pretty obvious. I
want Amy to tell us today. First of all, welcome Amy,
and thank you so much for taking the time to
be with us today. I wanted you to tell us
your journey because you have one of the most fascinating stories.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I call it.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Paying to purpose to passion, and honestly, I've found so
many of my guests have had the exact same kind
of epiphany. You know that through adversity comes opportunity. So
why did you start by telling us what happened to
you and why and how you got to where you
(01:15):
are today?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh? One hundred percent. First of all, thank you for
having me. Second, I always say pain to purpose, but
now I'm going to tag on the passion because I
love that. Yeah, I love that, yeah, and yeah, that's
exactly my story. So we're going to rewind Oh goodness,
twenty five ish years ago when I was competing in
figure competitions and I did fitness modeling at the same time.
(01:40):
So you know, the whole prep for the show is chicken, broccoli, asparagus.
You're hitting the gym twice a day. I mean things
that as a competitor, as a fitness athlete, you do
over and over and over again, so you know how
your body's supposed to respond. Now, It's always nice to
have a coach, which I did. So I had a
(02:01):
coach and he would tell me what to do and
send me my diet and my workout program. But every
time we did this together, it always worked, and I
would get nice and lean step on stage, step in
front of the camera, no problem. This one particular show,
and we're talking probably ten, fifteen, twenty shows and photo
shoots in this one show I'm getting ready for, and
(02:22):
you know, I'm stepping on the scale, sending him before
and after pictures. This one show I'm getting ready for.
The scale keeps going up, and I mean five pounds
the first week to where I'm like, well wait a minute,
that's that doesn't make sense, but maybe okay, maybe I'm
eating too much. Maybe I just need to do like
a third cardio of the day. Step on my cardio
(02:44):
a little bit more, go an hour and a half
with it instead. And then the next week went Bob
stepped on the scale again. Now it's up ten pounds
and I'm like, wait a minute, this isn't makeing sense,
Like my body's rebelling against me. So I'm checking in
with my coach. He's like, what do you do? And
I'm like, no, seriously, I'm not cheating on my diet.
I'm doing everything how you have it laid out perfectly.
(03:08):
And you know, I mean the whispers start at this point, right,
So everybody in the gym that used to see me
get ready and compete, they're like, oh, you know, she's
eating the donuts. That that's why she's not getting ready.
She's wearing sweatshirts in the gym. She's not going to
do this show. Well, they were right and wrong. I
wasn't going to do the show because my body was
(03:29):
rebelling against me. But I wasn't eating the donuts. I
was doing all the things, and probably to a too
strict point at that point because I was so frustrated
and disappointed and really start to lose hope. So let's
keep going. Week number three, Week number four, Week number five,
that scale went up a total of twenty five pounds.
(03:51):
After that, I stopped getting on, but I'm pretty sure
that on my five to two frame I was carrying
around an x extra forty pounds with no answers as
to why. So you know, at that point I did
what we all do. I started doctor ghouling, and I
start actually going to doctors. So I went to my
(04:12):
first doctor. I said, you know, hey, what's going on.
My body is rebelling against me. This doesn't make any sense,
Like biologically, it doesn't make sense. Whether you believe in
calories and calories out or not, it doesn't make sense.
So that doctor looks at me. Ransom Labs said, you're normal,
(04:34):
everything is fine. I said, okay, well I don't feel normal.
I don't feel fine. I don't accept that. So I
am going for a second opinion, because that's what we
have the right to do. So I go for the
second opinion. That doctor tells me, oh, you know, it's
all in your head. Why don't you just eat less
than exercise more? Well, it was impossible. I was already
(04:56):
eating so little, my calories were probably around a thous
which is not good. And I was working out twice
a day, sometimes three times a day, so that was
not possible.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Was I actually probably attacking my own adrenals at this point, Yeah,
because I was really stressed out and I was looking
for anything that would help. At that point, I went
to a total of six different doctors who all told
me this is under the medical gas lighting umbrella. They
all told me your normal, everything's fine, eat less, an
(05:28):
exercise more, it's all in your head. You're just getting older.
That one was good because I was in my twenties,
and really the things that they said to me should
have been written down and bookmarks because they were horrendous.
By that sixth doctor, I remember going to my car
in the parking lot and I put my head on
(05:49):
the steering wheel and just started crying and literally praying
to God for any diagnosis. And I know that sounds horrible,
like I never want to wish, a know, anything terminal
on myself for goodness sake, you know, power and what
we think. But I was so I was so frustrated
and so depleted that any diagnosis would have at least
(06:12):
been an answer, and it would at least given us
a direction in which to move to maybe reverse this
this thing that was happening in my body. So then
I go to doctor number seven. I don't stop, Thank God,
I don't stop. I go to doctor number seven. This
is another ender chronologist. I saw metabolic specialists, I saw endocrinologists,
(06:34):
I saw GPS, I saw obgyns. So here's yet another
endo chronologist, right, supposed to know the endocrine system. Well,
I give her some credit because she actually touched my
throat and said swallow, and she's feeling around and she says, okay,
there's a nodule in there that we're going to have ultrasounded.
But based on your labs, you have hashimotos, which is hypothyroidism.
(06:59):
And now here's the pill. So I left her office.
I'm like, this is it. I've got it, got the diagnosis,
and now I have a pill that's gonna fix me.
That pill was synthroid, right, which we're going to get
into more right.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Difference.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Okay, we're gonna talk more about that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
So I gave that T for five months and I
did not lose one pound. So back to doctor Google.
I start looking things up about this thyroid thing. I
put thyroidism Hashimoto's treatment for and I find, you know,
there's these other thyroid hormones. Okay, wait, I'm taking T four.
T four is the inactive thyroid hormone. There's T three
(07:43):
that's active, there's T two that's active. So I go
back to her and I say, you know, there there's
there's these other thyroid hormones. And and one of these
articles actually says the T four works better when it's combined,
when you combine it with these other thyroid hormones. Can
we do that? She goes, I don't do that. That's
not standard of care. And all I can do is
(08:05):
prescribe you T four. And I said, well, I'm going
to find somebody who can.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Then.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, I kept hearing the name of this functional doctor.
You know, when you hear names three times, you're like, okay,
thank you, I'm getting the message. So I actually listened
to the message that was being given to me, and
I went to see this functional doc. Now back in
the day, I call him functional now, but we didn't
even have that term. It was integrative, it was alternative.
(08:31):
But regardless, he was a pharmacist, he was a natural
path he was a functional practitioner. I mean, just all
the things under one umbrella. He sat with me for
ninety minutes. He ordered this book of blood work that
in those ninety minutes he actually went through with me
and started putting the pieces of the puzzle together, something
(08:54):
no other doctor had ever done. And then he asked
me the foremost important words that anyone should ask any patient.
So any practitioner out there should be asking their patients
as you, as a patient, should be hearing these words,
how do you feel?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Yes, I knew you were going to say that, right.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I never heard that from any other doctor I went
to either.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
So with that information he was able to put those
pieces of the puzzle together and put me on the
right track with the right thyroid hormone replacement, with the
right supplementation. You know, we changed my diet a little bit,
but it wasn't the diet and the supplements and the exercise.
It wasn't that. And that shows you how important it
is to have your thyroid optimized, because it doesn't matter
(09:42):
what you do. If your thyroid is in the toilet,
nothing is going to work. We changed all that up
and he literally saved my life. So from that point on,
I changed careers. He became my mentor. I got into
fund five to seven minute insurance based visit with your
gp obgyn. You need to be doing functional medicine and
(10:05):
you need to be meeting for a long time to
really put the piece of the puzzle together.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
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Speaker 2 (10:54):
Okay, So the things that.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I hear that are going to be really helpful to
people that are listening today, and I hope that my
viewers and listeners are take a piece of paper and
a pen and write notes, because this is so important
what you're telling us. The first thing that I hear
is how underdiagnosed or I'm misunderstood the thyroid is.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
And yet it is one of the.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Most important organs in the body. So why don't you
tell us more about that part of it? Why is
it so underdiagnosed? But before you do, I know that
doctor you found was eighty five years old when you
found him. So is he still alive today?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
He's still alive, but definitely not in practice, not in
practice anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, you still interact with him?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I do. I do. I love him to death and
he's just thrilled to see where I took the knowledge
that he imparted on me. So it's it's really nice
to give in touch.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, okay, so let's let's do all things thyroid today.
This is so so important, And this is why I've
been so eager to you know, basically, you know, we
talked what three or four months ago, but I've been
so eager to have you on this show because I
know how many people are not what is it six
(12:16):
million people in America have a thyroid condition, and how
many more eight million are never diagnosed.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yes, yes, that's very nice, great stats.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, I mean that's just completely amazing. And then we
have a sixty five percent obesity rate at least, So
how many of those sixty five percent, if they knew
that what their thyroid was doing or wasn't doing, might
actually not be obese. So we're just talking about the
(12:50):
weight issue, but there's so many other energy metabolic function,
which of course affects weight, heat, all these brain, brain,
cognitive function, all these parts of the body that do
not get productive are not productive if the thyroid is
(13:11):
not working. So let's dive in and talk to us
about all the different aspects of the thyroid, starting with
the key four, which is what you were given. But
what's not working and why is that? So if you
could just go for.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
It, yeah, yeah, let's do it. Okay, brief anatomy lesson
on the thyroid. So the thyroid butterfly shaped gland in
your neck. It is the master gland. So it controls
your blood pressure, your heart rate, your metabolism, your cell turnover,
so whether or not you're growing your hair, turning skin
(13:49):
cells over. Dry skin is a really big symptom when
you have hypothyrotism. If you think of hypothyroidism, think low
and slow, hypo low and slow. So if you think
of that, everything is going to be slowed down from
your mood, your brain processing, thinking, memory, heart rate, blood pressure,
body temperature. Many people are cold when the rest of
(14:12):
the room is totally comfortable. That motility. A lot of
thyroe patients do not go to the bathroom every single day.
And that's vital metabolism, fat burning, muscle building, I mean,
you name it. Everything goes low and slow when you
are in a hypothyroid state. So it really is the
master gland. Now that thyroid gland produces four different hormones
(14:37):
T one, T two, T three, T four, T one,
we can just set that aside. It really does nothing.
T four is inactive, where T three and T two
are active. So what does that mean? T four is inactive?
Meaning if we look at your cells on the outer
surface of the cell, you're going to have a receptor
site on every single cell in your body, trillions, trillions,
(15:00):
trillions of cells. Every single cell in your body has
a receptor slide on it for thyroid hormone, but for
T three thyrid hormone, so T four it's inactive, it
has to convert and it has to become T three
in order to get to the receptor site to do
its job, to turn on think of a lock and
(15:22):
key to turn on that cell, to turn on your metabolism,
to turn on your brain, to turn on your ATP
production at the mitochondria level, which is going to give
you energy. So that T four has to convert and
become T three. That conversion process I always I joke
and I say I equate it to running ten tough mutters,
(15:46):
because it's a really hard process for the body to do,
and there are so many things that get in the way,
so many things. So when we are looking at that conversion,
we test something called reverse T three. So when we're
looking at all the tests to get for your thyroid,
reverse T three is one of the most important tests
in addition to free T three. I'll get to that
(16:08):
in a minute. We look at reverse T three and
if that reverse T three is above A twelve, we go, oh,
you know, this person is having issues converting their T
four over into T three, and we do things to
rectify that. Now, when we're looking at the active thyrid hormones.
There's T three and T two. We test free T
(16:29):
three meaning the unbound ready to attach to your cell
active thyrid hormone, and with T two. There is no
test for T two because and we can dive more
into what is T two and how it can help people,
there's no test for T two, but it is an
active thyrid hormone, and anyone can take T two because
(16:53):
it's over the counter, whereas T four and T three
are under prescriptions. T two is over the counter.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeat interrupting.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
But why is there no test for T two.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
That's a great question. Honestly, I think if we really
unpack it and look at it, it's because T two
is in supplemental form, and we know big Pharma wants
to push people down the medication route. Now I don't
have a problem with thyroid medication. I do not. I
do not think that it is under the big pharma
label of you know, big Farmer wants to put you
(17:26):
on a statin or an antidepressant. They want to put
you on these band aid prescription drugs instead of using
biodentical hormones or using thyroid replacement therapy. But still, I
mean We're still talking about the big farmer world, and
that still comes down to if we test for something,
there better be a script that we can write for
(17:49):
it afterwards. So if we test for T two, then
that better be in medication form prescription form, and it's not.
It's available over the counter in supplemental form, and Big
doesn't make money off of supplements. So I mean, if
we really unpack it, that's that's what I believe, because
there there is a T two measurement when we're looking
(18:09):
at the studies done on T two, but it's not
universal to where you could go to lab core and
order it.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Okay, So just T two necessary to affect T three production.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
No, that's a great question. They work independently, Okay. So
let's say we have someone that we know they need
that active thyroid hormones. So if you go back to
my story, I was given T four, it is inactive.
It did not work. I saw my functional medicine practitioner
put me on armor thyroid, which is a blend of
(18:46):
T four and T three and eventually moves me to
T three only because I do not convert well, I
have a genetic snip that prevents conversion. Yeah, so when
we're looking at that, yes, I am on T three only,
but I still take T two because T two doesn't
affect my thyroid function. It doesn't affect my thyroid numbers,
(19:09):
and it works at the mitochondria level to increase my
base of metabolic rate. So I'll still take two, take
T two for my metabolism for fat burning for energy,
but I'll be on my T three medication prescription as well.
So kind of doing two different things.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Okay, And so let's talk about the thyroid stimulating hormone,
which is not a thyroid hormone. It's a pituitary So
can you tell us how that affects the T two
and T three and T four.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, that's how where does that come in?
Speaker 3 (19:46):
I love that you said that because I say that
all the time. It is not a thyroid hormone, not
a thyrod hormone. It is a brain hormone, but tuitary hormone.
So TSH is it's like you know when you're when
your kid, let's say, leaves toys all over the room
and you're like, Johnny, you gotta go pick up your toys,
and he doesn't listen, and your voice gets louder. You're like, Johnny,
(20:09):
got go pick up those toes, and then you know
it starts to get louder, louder, louder. Yeah, so you're
screaming and then Johnny maybe kind of sort of listen.
So KSh is the same way. It's it's talking at
your thyroid and then it starts to get louder when
the thyroid doesn't listen, Hey, thyroid, you gotta make more
T foor and T three. Hey thyroid, coin you're not
(20:31):
doing your job. You got to make more T thor
and T three. So as that TSH goes up, think
of it as getting louder. The brain is yelling at
the thyroid, noticing that it's it's not doing its job,
and it's poking it and it's yelling at it. It's like,
come on, trying to stimulate the thyroid to make more
thyroid hormone. Now, we don't look at TSH as the
(20:55):
bl end all marker like they do in conventional medicine.
In conventional medicine, doctors have learned you test TSH and
if TSH is above a four point five, which is
the current cutoff in labs, then you give T four.
That's all. That is all they have learned, and we
know so much more than that functional medicine. First of all,
in functional medicine, we have a totally different optimal range,
(21:17):
meaning we want your TSH to actually be below at
qwo right, and even that, we'll still see patients come
in with a beautiful TSH A one, a point five,
and yet when we look at the other tests that
we should be looking at, we still see that they
have hypothyroidism or hashimotos because TSH is not the b
(21:39):
all end all test. So it's nice to look at
if it's super high and it's flagged high and it's red,
that tells us ah, your brain is screaming at your
thyroid because your thyroid is not doing a good job
at making those thyroid hormones. But if it's not screaming,
we still have to look further, so.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Is the thyroid Like that could be like in the
blood work, like cortisol, where if you take a prick
of the finger or a vial of blood at a
certain time, you could have one level, but later on
in the day or based on your stress level or
other activities that day, what you ate someone does that
(22:21):
affect they blood levels of the thyroid. In other words,
is it one of those organs that is very sensitive
to the timing of when the blood is drawn.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yes and no. So we like to do labs in
the morning when we're checking thyroid because TSH will change
throughout the day. But when you're looking at the really
really important markers like free T three and reverse T
three and then your antibodies, yeah, those aren't really going
to fluctuate that much based on the time of day.
You're not going to fluctuate based on what you eat.
(22:57):
Stress might affect the reverse TEA three a little bit,
but we can kind of get a really good idea
of that when we talk to the person, ask them
about their stress levels, what they're dealing with, and see
if that's playing a role with the reverse T three.
But mainly it's it's number one, you take it in
the morning. Number two. If you are on thyroid medication
of any kind, then you want to hold that for
(23:21):
twenty eighteen to twenty four hours before your labs, especially
if it contains T three in it. You want to
hold your thyro medication. And then you also don't want
to take biotin for five to seven days or before
a thyroid lab.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Oh why is that?
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Maybe it can affect the TSH and the free T three.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Oh well, that's something I don't think any most people
have never heard that.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Biotuine is in a lot of supplements. I mean I
take it sublingually in the morning, just but I know
I've seen it in the ingredients and other supplements that
I take. So that would be something you would really
have to investigate before you do your test.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yes, oh, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Okay, so tell us about the antibodies. Let's just say you, well,
first person, before I asked that question, what why is
the Barnes method used instead of blood work? Because they
say that you could be normal in your thyroid blood work,
and still if you ask that important question that you
(24:28):
mentioned earlier, how do you feel you still have hypothyroidism?
So then they say use the Barns method. Do you
want to talk about that or is that somewhat antiquated?
Speaker 3 (24:41):
I think it's pretty antiquated because we can get really
we can get a very accurate picture through blood. Now,
I do like blood over saliva. A lot of times
I'll get that question is saliva accurate? I have tested
saliva with hormones with thyrol, and I cannot find it
good consistency with that. The only time I use saliva
(25:03):
is with if we're testing cortisol through the day, like
a four point saliva cortisol panel. But other than that,
just a nice, good old fashioned blood draw.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Something here and then doing urine, saliva or stool. So yeah,
that's good. But I all the years I've been testing
my thyroid, I was told that you could come out
with levels that are normal, but your thyroid you still
don't feel.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Well well then you know, then we have to break
down normal versus optimal. So that that comes back more
to discussing the standard lab value range on that blood
test that you get. So on any blood test, you're
going to see over here like a reference range, and
that's what your conventional doctor is looking at to go, oh, look,
(25:52):
your labs are normal. So the first doctor I saw,
remember I got that yep, your normal air quotes here normal. Yeah,
and that's what they're looking at.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Now.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
It's important to remember that that standard lab value range,
that reference range was taken from groups of sick people.
They did not stop to say, you know, we're testing
all of these people, but we have sixty five percent
of the morrow best, like you quoted in the beginning,
which is true. And then we have people with cancer,
we have heart disease, we have these people that aren't
taking care of themselves, they're eat McDonald's whatever. Whereas functional
(26:24):
medicine comes in and we narrow that down and we say,
let's test the badasses. Let's test that seventy year old
over there that's still schemed down a mountain. Let's test
that sixty five year old that has like a rock
hard muscular body, and let's figure out what their levels are,
(26:44):
because that's going to give us that optimal range. That's
where people are going to feel their best, not out
here in the standard lab value range that's wide and
vast and huge and who god knows what kind of
sick people were tested for this. We want to take
that narrow bullseye optimal range and that's where I want
people to be, where we know there's a ninety nine
(27:08):
point nine percent chance you are going to feel your
best in that range.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Okay, so let's talk about what those levels are for
the ones that we've already discussed, the T one, two, three,
the TSH you said below two, but just tell us
what the optimal level should be for those.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Sure, we'd love to so TSH we want below a two. Yeah,
free T four we don't care about. One thing to
note is if free T four is higher, if that
is in the upper quadrant of the range, So it
would be usually like a one point three, one point four,
one point five or above. That can actually indicate that
(27:47):
you have a conversion problem or that you're on too
much T four. Then we move on to free T three.
We want that in the upper quadrant of the range.
So this makes it very universal for labs. When we
say up quadrant. Just take that standard reference range, cut
it into four, and that's where you want to be
for the free T three is the upper quadrant or
(28:09):
a little bit over, it's okay. If you're a little
bit over, not a problem. If you're flagged high. Reverse
T three is relatively universal as well most lab tests,
even in other countries. We want that below at twelve.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
And then then there are the TPO and the TGA
antibodies and these tests for hashimotos.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, that's where the depth space.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
But I'm going to be sure we cover the the
ones we've already talked about yees. Okay, so what reverse
the reverse T There's not a reverse T four.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Right, No, no, just reverse T three.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Yeah, so those are the ones T one, T two,
T three, all T four and reverse.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Well, there's no test for T one, there's no test
for T two. So we're just gonna look at TSH three,
T three, free T four or reversese T three. And
now we have the antibodies.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Okay, all right, so let's talk about those antibodies because
those are really if you have an autoab conditioner called hashimotos.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yes, oh yes, so those antibodies we want at zero.
And this is really important for people to take notes
on because there are many times, and I have heard
this across the board from patients that have come into
the practice. They've seen conventional they've even seen functional medicine
doctors who told them you do not have hashimotos. Then
(29:32):
I look at their lives and even their history of labs,
and I said, well, wait a minute, back here, last year,
your TPO showed that you had twenty antibodies and your
TGA had five. Oh but wait, it wasn't flagged in
the reference range. So let me give you a little analogy.
So you'll understand what I'm talking about here. When we're
(29:53):
talking about antibodies, I want you to think of them
as soldiers that are attacking your thyroid. So really, I
mean any antibody for any autoimmune condition you could test
rhumatard arthritis antibodies, those are soldiers attacking your joints. So
for hashimotos, these are soldiers attacking your thyroid because they
think that your thyroid is a bad guy. They're just
(30:14):
really confused. Whenever we're talking about autoimmunity, your body is
confused that thinks that an organ or a joint, or
or your small intestine or whatever it is, is a
bad guy, so they've attack it. So those antibodies are soldiers.
If you think about it that way, then this next
part it's going to make sense. So we do a test,
and let's say that standard lamb value range for thyroid
(30:37):
peroxidaseantibodies TPO is less than thirty four. That's a very
very common reference range for the TPO antibodies less than
thirty four. So you come in at a twenty and
your doctor, in particular functional doctor that I that I
that one of my patients saw before coming to us
who told her you don't have poshimotos, looked at that
(31:01):
twenty marker for her TPO, looked at the standard reference range, Oh,
it has to be less than thirty four, and says
you don't have hashimotos. So I go, uh, okay, So wait,
you're gaining weight, you're losing your hair, you have no energy,
you don't poop every day, But you don't have hashimotos.
Are we just gonna wait until those twenty soldiers build
(31:24):
up to until they get to thirty five, when you
actually get that h next to it and it turns red.
At that point in time, do we say, okay, now
you have hashimotos. Now we can do something. Meanwhile, you're
thirty pounds heavier, you can't get off the damn couch
because you're too tired, You've lost all of your hair,
(31:47):
you have no libido, you're bloated all the time. Why
don't we address it now when we see the first
signs of those soldiers building an army and say, yeah,
you have hashimotos because you have antibodies. So long story short,
I want those TPO and TGA antibodies at zero, okay, zero?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
So what's the difference between the two.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
They're just two different markers. So TPO is way more
common and tga A can when we have positive thyroglobulin antibodies.
That number one does indicate hashimotos but can be correlated
to thyroid cancer, not always, I don't like to scare people,
but can be correlated to thyroid cancer being present.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Okay, so let's just say you're above one and you
do have the antibody, so you do have motives. How
does other autoimmune conditions affect that those results?
Speaker 3 (32:46):
So one thing to keep in mind is autoimmune begets autoimmune.
Where we see one, we see more than one. So
it's not that the other autoimmune conditions are affecting the
Hashimoto antibodies, but we tend to get a spread with
with autoimmunity. So let's say those soldiers start to build
and we see this more when people are really really
(33:07):
high in their antibodies, and the hundreds and the thousands,
and what ends up happening is those soldiers go out
they attack the thyroid because they know it's a bad guy.
And then let's say, okay, let's move over here to
someone's small intestine, and now you have celiac and this
can also occur with the consumption of gluten because gluten
(33:33):
looks like the thyroid gland. It's called molecular mimicry, So
it looks under the microscope very similar to the thyroid gland.
And then those soldiers see gluten come into the body
think it's another bad guy invader. They launch an attack
and you start to build your army, and as that
army builds, it naturally goes to other places of the body.
(33:55):
So we normally do see more than one autoimmune condition
when we see one present.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Okay, so the other question I had is how does
leaky gut and other microbiome disorders LPs and sodular and included,
how do they affect the thyroid?
Speaker 3 (34:17):
So that's going to set you up more for an
autoimmune for autoimmune being present. So we use that three
legged stool analogy with autoimmune conditions. I think it's perfect.
So on the one leg, you have the genetic predisposition
someone in your family has some autoimmune condition. It doesn't
have to be hashemotives, it can be any autoimmune. Then
we have that other leg of the stool, which is
(34:38):
leaky gut, which these days I mean who doesn't have
leaki gut. These with the amount of chemicals and toxins
that were being exposed to I mean chlorine fluoride, BPA,
food dye, which hopefully that's changing, but just all of
these these toxic chemicals just destroy the gut lining. So
(34:59):
it's very very common for leaky get to be present
in a person. High levels of zangulin, which is an
inflammatory marker that we can measure, and then we have
that third leg of the stool, which is a trigger.
So you have somebody that has leaki gut, has that
genetic predisposition. And then let's say they go into perimenopause,
(35:19):
which I always say thyrol pause. The definition of thyropause.
It firopause affects everyonoman over the age of forty because
it's when your thyroid hormone levels declined due to fluctuating
bioidentical hormone level. So do when your progesteroneh you're estrogen
(35:40):
when your testosterone starts to fluctuate like that in perimenopause.
And this even happens in pregnancy, ladies, So even something
as natural as being pregnant or even in puberty, any
kind of hormonal roller coaster fluctuations can turn on that
switch of hashimotos of autoimmune.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Okay, and then what about candeta.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
And Candida plays a role, but it's not a direct
it's not really a direct role. So more with candida.
When when someone has hypothyroidism, I will see blood sugar
dishregulation and insulin resistance. Okay, nine times out of ten
that will be present. And then we know that that
candida can be fueled from having that insulin resistance from
(36:26):
consumption of carb sugar. So it just kind of it's
more of feeding a downstream effect of the thyroid.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Okay, good, Okay, So you just reference the other hormones.
So let's talk about that for movement. How what should
the optimum levels be of the other hormones that are
going to keep your thyroid healthy and free of automobile?
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Yes? Yes, so important to talk about the other sex
hormones too, And also important to to note for the
audience that you know, you could find a thyroid expert
over here or someone that claims to be and a
hormone expert over here, and you'll ask the hormone expert
if they do thyrom and they'll say no, And you
(37:09):
ask the thyroid expert. If they do hormones and they
say no, that should be a huge red flag where
you want to run far away from that practitioner because
those two go together. So that's why when I say
I'm a thyroate and hormone expert, I'm a thyron hormone expert,
because they have to go together. You cannot address one
without the other. So I'll explain why. Number one, we
know that the thyroid itself can throw someone into early menopause.
(37:34):
It will oh when the thyroid is low, it will
push a man's testosterone into the toilet. Every time I
see a man with hashimotives, and we know it affects
women more than men. But every time I see these
poor dudes with hashimotives, they're testosterones in the toilet. It's
just a shame. So we know that there's an interplane.
Now on the flip side, the reason why men have
(37:56):
less autoimmune in general is because they in general have
higher testosterol levels. So even a low T for a
man is still higher than most women, right, So they
have that protective layer. And that's what testosterone does, is
it protects us against autoimmune. So in addition, to giving
(38:16):
us motivation and drive and strength and changing our body
composition and lighting up our brain and helping us think
and focus. It also protects us against autoimmune which is beautiful.
So we need testosterl levels to be optimal. Optimal testosterone
levels for a woman total testosterone I always want to
(38:38):
see above a fifty, so fifty would be minimal. And
side note, most labs cut you off at forty eight,
so in order to even hit the bottom of the
barrel optimal range, you have to be flagged high, which
is comical. It's like, oh my gosh, okay, So the
standard lab value range doesn't even encompass where women should start.
(39:00):
And then the free testosterone I like that in the
upper half of the range for women when we're talking
testosterone for men, at least at least above an eight
hundred I'm sorry, even if you're seventy eighty years old,
you should have an eight hundred total testosterone or above,
(39:23):
which means that you should be on TRT three testosterone.
We like it twenty or above, but usually a little
bit higher, like it around like fifty or whatever for
men for free testosterone. But then we go into the
estradal on progesterone levels so important for both sexes. Estra
dial for men, we want it below a thirty. Estra
(39:44):
dial for women we want above a fifty, but really
closer to like eighty to one twenty independent of age.
That's where you're going to feel your best for estra
dial because estra dil helps with vaginal lubrication, helps with
our brain, lowers our of Alzheimer's, helps with our skin,
our hair, hair falling out is huge. Minestra dial levels
(40:07):
are low, and then we move into progesterone, which progesterone
helps us sleep, protects us against cancer, helps with osteoporosis.
So does estra dial. I mean, there are so many
benefits to hormones, we'd be here for an hour listing
them all. But progesterone levels here's where it gets a
little tricky. So if you're taking an oral and this
is very very disputed. So if you're listening to this
(40:29):
and you're like, well, I heard so and so on
this other podcast, say the opposite, We're both right, because
there's really no I cannot find a definitive, agreed upon,
solid answer to this. If you are taking an oral progesterone,
which is beautiful because it helps you sleep, It calms
(40:49):
your brain, helps with anxiety. If you're taking an oral progesterone,
there's a really good chance it's not going to show
up on blood. So we can dose progesterone based on
how you feel, and that's where those foremost important words
come in. How do you feel if you're if you
haven't sawn me, if you're anxious, for your jittery, if
you know your just mood is off. The classic low
(41:10):
progesterone sign and symptom for women is when your family
or friends are going, why are you so bitchy all
of a sudden, It's true, it's like, uh yeah, your
low progesterone. Progesterone helps with PMDD, it helps with heavy bleeding,
helps with irregular cycles. It should be given to girls
(41:31):
for birth control over birth control, because birth control is synthetic.
Real progesterone is real. And even men benefit from a
little bit of progesterone because men have anxiety, men have insomnia.
Men protection against cancer too, so you can give them
a little bit of progesterone as well.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
So what was the level of the progesterone that talked.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
About, Well, that's the thing. So Okay, Optimally, we like
for women to be in like the double digits with
progesterone when tested on days nineteen to twenty two of
your cycle. If you're not cycling, then you can test whenever.
But that's the thing. It's like, if a woman comes
to me and she's not on any progesterone and we
see her PA level is like a point one or
(42:15):
I've seen it like indetectable less than point three on
the lab, well, then of course you need progesterone. Really,
I mean, if you're over forty, you should be looking
at thyroid hormone, testosterone, progesterone, and estradil. You should be
looking at them all because hormones give us life and
they give us quality of life. But we can't necessarily
(42:35):
go by the number because I've also replaced someone's progesterone
and I have a patient. We have her on six hundred,
eight hundred milligrams of progesterone, and we still can't get
that blood number over a five. But who cares because
she's sleeping and she's calm, and she feels fantastic, So
(42:55):
we just go, okay, don't really care about the number
we're dose and basing this on how you feel.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
What about dha D I just.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Like it to be in range, you know, a little
bit like upper quadrant of the range, over half of
the range. If it's over range, I always then this
is really interesting and something I see quite often. I go,
are you taking any dha? They go no, I go, well,
then you're stressed because when that DHA goes high and
you're not taking an eight or I have them comb
through their sow you sure it's not hidden somewhere and
(43:27):
your supplements like biot in like, oh, look it's in
my multi but yeah, I have them look to make
sure that they're not taking dhia you're getting exposed to it,
and then if it's high, then I go, then you're
really stressed out.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Okay, So what about some of the other supplements like
divide with D three, calcium, magnesium, some of the other
supplements that can affect your thigh?
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Right? What are they and what should they be? Level wise?
Speaker 3 (43:54):
So these are I'll go over some of the what
I call the no dues supplements, so meaning of course
you're gonna take these every day. So that's going to
be your iodine, which is very very important for thyroid.
If you are not taking iodine, it's going to show
up as low. If you are taking it, it's going
to show up as high. Really, no need to test
(44:14):
for it. You just take it every selling the body
needs it.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Can you take iodine on your skin topically rather than
gesting it?
Speaker 3 (44:24):
It's not as effective. So a lot of people do
that as a as a test. It's kind of like
an old school test of iodine that if you put
it on your skin, you see how fast it absorbs,
and that kind of tells you if you need or
you don't. Yeah, I've interviewed doctor Brownstein. He's like, no,
but not, you know, and he's the guru of iodine.
(44:44):
I love this man's brain on iodine. He's written so
many books. And yeah, it's just not as effective for
a test, and it's not as as effective to be absorbed.
Is that putting idon on a boo boo or something?
That's fine?
Speaker 2 (44:57):
That is that deal? Brownstein from Hawaii?
Speaker 3 (45:00):
This is doctor David Brownstein.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Oh okay, because there was a meal in Hawaii when
I was living on Kawhi. And then what about selenium?
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Selenium that's a great question because so many fabric patients
overdoe selenium because they read it in a blog. The
selenium is fantastic for your thyroid, fantastic for conversion, but
you can take too much. A lot of people will
take two hundred and four hundred micrograms of selenium every
single day. You really only need one hundred every other day.
Or I say go natural and just eat like a
(45:33):
couple of brazil nuts. And some people will say, you
can't get enough selenium from brazil nuts. Listen, whenever we
can get it from our food, let's get it from
our food. If it happens to be you know, twenty
five fifty micrograms in your multi that's fine. Just eat
a brazil nut every day and that's going to cover you.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
And if you overdose some celenium, what's the result.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
You can push up your reverse TEA three and actually
hinder conversion of T four to T three.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Why is that?
Speaker 3 (46:01):
You know? I don't know the mechanism of action. I
just see it as it's it's one of the things,
one of the many things we look at when we're
looking at elevated reverse T three and what triggers that.
But whenever I see labs and someone is flagged high
on Selenam. I'm like, let's back and down because that
could be driving up your reverse T three. Let's back
(46:21):
that on down.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
And I was told that you should always keep brazil
nuts in the freezer, so that's where mine are. And
then I take them out and I put them in
a grinder and I just use it like on top
of a smoothie or something.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Is that all right to do?
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Oh? Yeah, I'm gonna start doing that. That sounds good.
Speaker 5 (46:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Brazil nuts by themselves are pretty hard, and they don't
always taste this good, but when you when you grind them,
they become a powder and they taste really good. So
that's what I usually put that with the flat seats.
You know, because you're a critical nutritus as well as
a functional medicine person.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Doctor, what is the diet?
Speaker 1 (47:07):
And I know this is going to kill a lot
of my viewers because they're not going to like what
they hear, But what is the diet that you would
optimally propose for hashimotos or for anyone who has a
thyroid issue. They don't just don't feel good.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Sure, well, I always say that your labs tell us
how you should eat. So when we're looking at the
breakdown of We'll break this down into a couple different sections.
When we're looking at macronutrient breakdown, everyone hashimotos, hypothyroid or not.
Every single person should be consuming at least one gram
(47:44):
per pound of lean body mass of protein. Hands down.
I mean, your your muscle is your organ of longevity.
It's going to protect you as you age. It's going
to protect your muscular skeletal system, it's going to protect
your month. I mean, it's going to protect everything. It's
going to make you more metabolically active, it's going to
protect you if you against falls. It's just going to
make you look better obviously body composition wise, so we
(48:06):
need amino acids. We need protein to feel those muscles
and to keep our muscles. So one grand per pound
of lean body mouse. When it comes to the fat
and carb ratio, that goes back to your labs. Are
you insulin resistant? So when we're looking at insulin, I
like that below a six fasting insulin. And when we're
looking at a one C which is a three month
(48:26):
snapshot of your blood glucose levels, I like that four
point eight to five point two. So many times I
see patients coming in with an A one C have
a five point five, five point six, five point seven.
Their doctor said nothing to them, and I'm like, well,
per functional medicine, you are diabetic. Now is that coming
(48:47):
from your thyroid function being off? And because these are
the people, they could say, I eat keto, I eat carnivore,
and my blood sugar should not be a high. Right,
that's coming from your thyroid throwing off your glucose regulation
and glucose metabolism. But and then we throw in things
like I have blood sugar fixer in my line. That's burberine.
(49:09):
I love that for lowering insulin. I love the T too,
the T too that's in thyroid fixer. I love that
because it's going to increase your metabolism. So as you
lose weight, you can you can balance out your insulin
and glucose in a better way. You can bring in
more carbohydrates as your body sheds more fat, so you
don't have to go as low carb as you were
(49:30):
in the beginning. So that and then that also T
two also helps with insulin resistance, So I love that.
But it really the carves and fat breakdown is going
to be dependent on whether or not you were insulin resistant. Now,
I have had some patients come in who, yes, they
are hypothyroid, but their bloodshir control is fine, so they
(49:52):
can get away with more clean, good sources of carbohydrates
than can the person that is insulin resistant.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Okay, okay, so then okay, So what should be the
diet the optimal diet with respect to gluten right back
to well, you already talked about the protein, but you
didn't say what kind of protein.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
So animal based protein, right, yeah, not non land based protein,
so animal based protein that contains amino acid. So this
does not mean beans or fake meat or soy. We
should actually be soy free. I don't care if you
use a little bit of soy sauce, but you should
not be consuming soy milk, soy protein, and amma all
(50:37):
of that because that can downregulate your thyroid function. Gluten free, yes,
across the board, because of what we talked about earlier.
Gluten can kick up autoimmunity and build your soldiers adequate
amounts of protein and really just the you know, the
no brainer stuff that I know it's for your audience,
it would be a no brainer for the general population.
(50:57):
You do have to kind of drive this home over
an over again, get out the sugar, the seed oils,
and just quit with the processed garbage. I mean, I
know it's convenient, and even I, of course I will
grab something processed in a box and a bag or whatever,
but I also try and get it as minimal process
(51:18):
as possible. So I have these new rooten free crackers.
I found it Whole Foods and they're made with almond
flour and they have maybe like five ingredients, all of
which I can pronounce. Yeah, okay, But if you're picking
up something and you look at that label and it
has a bolt of ingredients that you can pronounce as
canola oil, seed oil, anything like that in it, high
ferctose corns are my god, that is horrendous for you.
(51:41):
You gotta just avoid that.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
It's horrendous for everything, not just your thy right, so everything.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Yeah, hopefully this.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
If our cake gets confirmed, we're going to have a
champion for food integrity. And this is going to make
a huge difference the people and the common person who
isn't that disciplined or it doesn't really know that they're
supposed to be looking at these ingredients.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
You know, yes, yes, I'm very excited.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yes, And what about way protein? Is that all right?
Speaker 1 (52:17):
I mean is black toase, okay, and eggs and that
source of protein.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
I'm totally fine with that if you can handle it.
Wave protein has a tendency to spike insulin, so if
you are insulin resistant, I always push those people toward
the beef isolate, like collagen based types of protein. Beef
isolate is my favorite grasp that of course. But the
way protein, you know, if you can, if you can
(52:46):
handle it, if you take in a protein powder and
you all of a sudden look six months pregnant after
taking it and your stomach is rumbling, then maybe don't
do that, Like that's your mondy telling you that you
really can't handle it. And yeah, you can start off
with some digestive enzymes. That's really helpful for digesting and
breaking down your protein and assimilating the protein properly. But
(53:08):
if your body respond like that, that's kind of a
red flag, Like.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
Yeah, do that again, how do you feel? That's always
the sixty four thousand dollars question. So all right, they
just flagged me, and that means we're out almost out
of time.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
So I'm going to ask.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
You to tell us more about your supplements and if
you could spend a minute or two and then tell
us what kind of wonderful, generous gift you're offering to
our viewers today.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
Absolutely. Okay, so we kind of unpacked this tea too
a little bit, but I'm going to give you a
thirty second breakdown of it. So T two I have
in my thyroid fixer product and my metabolism fixer product, right,
and you don't have to have a fire problem and
take fired fixer. But that was my baby. That was
the very first product in the line, and I named it,
(54:00):
of course after the brand after me. But I have
been researching T two for fifteen years and it is amazing.
It actually has over thirty years of research on it.
What it does is it increases your base on metabolic grades,
so literally the amount of fat that you're burning at rest,
it will increase that so you get more metabolism. It
works at the mitochondria level to produce to stimulate ATP production,
(54:23):
so that's going to produce nice steady energy through the day,
So no hives, no lows, no caffeinated stimulation, it's just
that nice cellular energy that we should be experiencing throughout
the day. So it improves fat burning, it improves energy function.
It browns white atapose tissue. So that's why we're all
jumping into cold plunges to actually, you know, brown and
(54:44):
stimulate that white, squishy fat and turn it brown. It
helps with it helps with insulin resistance, it helps with
faty liver disease, It improves colester all panels. And it's
just it's non stimulant. So you're not going to take
that fat burner right back in the day, remember the
fat burners that we thought, oh my god, we're gonna
have a heart attack. It doesn't do that. So it's
(55:05):
a beautiful fat burner.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Ephedra and caffeine.
Speaker 3 (55:09):
Yeah, I mean we all damn near died from that.
So yeah, and when we look at the human studies,
we are seeing an average of a nine pound weight
loss or four percent body fat reduction in twenty eight days.
So it really is amazing. And I think that this
(55:31):
should I think T two should come in as the
forefront of fighting this obesity epidemic that we have. Rather
than giving everyone these expensive glps where you lose muscle
and you lose facial fat and you get o zepic
face and a flat butt. You know, let's use something
that's safe and T two does not burn your muscle.
(55:53):
It leaves your muscle alone. So even when you listen
to trainers, to professional bodybuilders, professional ficket fitness and things,
your athletes, they will tell you that they only use
T two. They do not allow their athletes to abuse
T three because it can burn muscles, so they only
use T two so it protects your muscle. So we
have that in Thyroid Fixer Metabolism Fixer. Also in those
(56:15):
both are it's l tyracin. That's one of the ingredients
in them as well, which helps your thirey exlam produce
more T for and T three. So that's a bonus
for everyone across the board. And yes, we are giving
your audience a twenty percent discount. So anything on the
Fixer site, you go to better Life doctor dot com,
(56:36):
forward slash ageless and you use the code ageless twenty
and that is going to give you twenty percent off.
So you can actually try Thyroid Fixer Metabolism Fixer boost
that metabolism and you'll see dramatic differences.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
Okay, so let's say is what about absorption. What if
someone's really toxic and they're not absorbing their supplements through
their liver, is that going to affect Is there anything
in your products that helps to improve absorption.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
So we'll do a couple of different things. Number One,
I do have liver Fixer in my line, so I
might put someone on. If someone is that extreme, I'll
put them on Liver Fixer. Will run that for maybe
two three weeks before adding another supplement in. Okay, and
then if we are adding another supplement in here's the thing.
Metabolism Fixer is in powder form and it tastes really good.
(57:29):
It actually tastes like tang but it's naturally sweetened with stevia.
It's actually sweetened with ono sweet, which is a fermented stevia.
So even people who can't tolerate stevia can can tolerate
the firm and take fermented stevia. Yeah, and you know,
you just put that in your water and you sip
on it, and that way it is more readily absorbed
that way, So anyone with absorption issues or major gut issues,
(57:53):
I would say use the metabolism fixer because it's powder.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
Okay, good, good, Well, Amy, I just I I want
to keep going because it's so fascinating and you have well,
first of all, you're probably one of the best looking guests.
Speaker 2 (58:08):
I've ever had, so sorry to thank you.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
Wonderful male guests who I have some amazing male you know,
fitness people and doctors who are really.
Speaker 2 (58:18):
In the know, but you take the cake.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
So anyway, I tell you that you could come on
and you have so much energy, so different than where you.
Speaker 2 (58:26):
Were twenty five years ago.
Speaker 3 (58:28):
Yeah, you're not kidding, So thank you for being here.
Speaker 2 (58:31):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
I had this terrible cold and I'm not myself, but
I think we did a good job.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
I think it's great.
Speaker 1 (58:37):
But it's all because of you that you know so
much about your subject and people are going to be
writing to us. We're going to run a couple of
reels to get you on exposure on Instagram, and I
know you have a podcast, so anything that you want
to do with us on the interview for your media
social media, you know, please feel free to collaborate with us.
Speaker 3 (59:02):
Absolutely, we absolutely will just chag us and we'll post
it ourselves to you.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
I love it all right, Well, you have a great weekend,
and thank you again.
Speaker 3 (59:09):
Thanks Michelle okay, take care,
Well, this is Michelle Hughes from Ageless and Timeless with
a very bad cold today. But I wasn't going to
cancel this incredible interview because I've been looking forward to
meeting and talking with Amy, doctor Amy Horneman, who is
the thyroid Fixer.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
And many of you have heard of Amy.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
She's very well known on the Internet and also for
her work with the thyroid, which it's pretty obvious. I
want Amy to tell us today. First of all, welcome Amy,
and thank you so much for taking the time to
be with us today. I wanted you to tell us
your journey because you have one of the most fascinating stories.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I call it.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Paying to purpose to passion, and honestly, I've found so
many of my guests have had the exact same kind
of epiphany. You know that through adversity comes opportunity. So
why did you start by telling us what happened to
you and why and how you got to where you
(01:15):
are today?
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh? One hundred percent. First of all, thank you for
having me. Second, I always say pain to purpose, but
now I'm going to tag on the passion because I
love that. Yeah, I love that, yeah, and yeah, that's
exactly my story. So we're going to rewind Oh goodness,
twenty five ish years ago when I was competing in
figure competitions and I did fitness modeling at the same time.
(01:40):
So you know, the whole prep for the show is chicken, broccoli, asparagus.
You're hitting the gym twice a day. I mean things
that as a competitor, as a fitness athlete, you do
over and over and over again, so you know how
your body's supposed to respond. Now, It's always nice to
have a coach, which I did. So I had a
(02:01):
coach and he would tell me what to do and
send me my diet and my workout program. But every
time we did this together, it always worked, and I
would get nice and lean step on stage, step in
front of the camera, no problem. This one particular show,
and we're talking probably ten, fifteen, twenty shows and photo
shoots in this one show I'm getting ready for, and
(02:22):
you know, I'm stepping on the scale, sending him before
and after pictures. This one show I'm getting ready for.
The scale keeps going up, and I mean five pounds
the first week to where I'm like, well wait a minute,
that's that doesn't make sense, but maybe okay, maybe I'm
eating too much. Maybe I just need to do like
a third cardio of the day. Step on my cardio
(02:44):
a little bit more, go an hour and a half
with it instead. And then the next week went Bob
stepped on the scale again. Now it's up ten pounds
and I'm like, wait a minute, this isn't makeing sense,
Like my body's rebelling against me. So I'm checking in
with my coach. He's like, what do you do? And
I'm like, no, seriously, I'm not cheating on my diet.
I'm doing everything how you have it laid out perfectly.
(03:08):
And you know, I mean the whispers start at this point, right,
So everybody in the gym that used to see me
get ready and compete, they're like, oh, you know, she's
eating the donuts. That that's why she's not getting ready.
She's wearing sweatshirts in the gym. She's not going to
do this show. Well, they were right and wrong. I
wasn't going to do the show because my body was
(03:29):
rebelling against me. But I wasn't eating the donuts. I
was doing all the things, and probably to a too
strict point at that point because I was so frustrated
and disappointed and really start to lose hope. So let's
keep going. Week number three, Week number four, Week number five,
that scale went up a total of twenty five pounds.
(03:51):
After that, I stopped getting on, but I'm pretty sure
that on my five to two frame I was carrying
around an x extra forty pounds with no answers as
to why. So you know, at that point I did
what we all do. I started doctor ghouling, and I
start actually going to doctors. So I went to my
(04:12):
first doctor. I said, you know, hey, what's going on.
My body is rebelling against me. This doesn't make any sense,
Like biologically, it doesn't make sense. Whether you believe in
calories and calories out or not, it doesn't make sense.
So that doctor looks at me. Ransom Labs said, you're normal,
(04:34):
everything is fine. I said, okay, well I don't feel normal.
I don't feel fine. I don't accept that. So I
am going for a second opinion, because that's what we
have the right to do. So I go for the
second opinion. That doctor tells me, oh, you know, it's
all in your head. Why don't you just eat less
than exercise more? Well, it was impossible. I was already
(04:56):
eating so little, my calories were probably around a thous
which is not good. And I was working out twice
a day, sometimes three times a day, so that was
not possible.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
Now.
Speaker 3 (05:07):
Was I actually probably attacking my own adrenals at this point, Yeah,
because I was really stressed out and I was looking
for anything that would help. At that point, I went
to a total of six different doctors who all told
me this is under the medical gas lighting umbrella. They
all told me your normal, everything's fine, eat less, an
(05:28):
exercise more, it's all in your head. You're just getting older.
That one was good because I was in my twenties,
and really the things that they said to me should
have been written down and bookmarks because they were horrendous.
By that sixth doctor, I remember going to my car
in the parking lot and I put my head on
(05:49):
the steering wheel and just started crying and literally praying
to God for any diagnosis. And I know that sounds horrible,
like I never want to wish, a know, anything terminal
on myself for goodness sake, you know, power and what
we think. But I was so I was so frustrated
and so depleted that any diagnosis would have at least
(06:12):
been an answer, and it would at least given us
a direction in which to move to maybe reverse this
this thing that was happening in my body. So then
I go to doctor number seven. I don't stop, Thank God,
I don't stop. I go to doctor number seven. This
is another ender chronologist. I saw metabolic specialists, I saw endocrinologists,
(06:34):
I saw GPS, I saw obgyns. So here's yet another
endo chronologist, right, supposed to know the endocrine system. Well,
I give her some credit because she actually touched my
throat and said swallow, and she's feeling around and she says, okay,
there's a nodule in there that we're going to have ultrasounded.
But based on your labs, you have hashimotos, which is hypothyroidism.
(06:59):
And now here's the pill. So I left her office.
I'm like, this is it. I've got it, got the diagnosis,
and now I have a pill that's gonna fix me.
That pill was synthroid, right, which we're going to get
into more right.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Difference.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Okay, we're gonna talk more about that.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
So I gave that T for five months and I
did not lose one pound. So back to doctor Google.
I start looking things up about this thyroid thing. I
put thyroidism Hashimoto's treatment for and I find, you know,
there's these other thyroid hormones. Okay, wait, I'm taking T four.
T four is the inactive thyroid hormone. There's T three
(07:43):
that's active, there's T two that's active. So I go
back to her and I say, you know, there there's
there's these other thyroid hormones. And and one of these
articles actually says the T four works better when it's combined,
when you combine it with these other thyroid hormones. Can
we do that? She goes, I don't do that. That's
not standard of care. And all I can do is
(08:05):
prescribe you T four. And I said, well, I'm going
to find somebody who can.
Speaker 2 (08:09):
Then.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
Yeah, I kept hearing the name of this functional doctor.
You know, when you hear names three times, you're like, okay,
thank you, I'm getting the message. So I actually listened
to the message that was being given to me, and
I went to see this functional doc. Now back in
the day, I call him functional now, but we didn't
even have that term. It was integrative, it was alternative.
(08:31):
But regardless, he was a pharmacist, he was a natural
path he was a functional practitioner. I mean, just all
the things under one umbrella. He sat with me for
ninety minutes. He ordered this book of blood work that
in those ninety minutes he actually went through with me
and started putting the pieces of the puzzle together, something
(08:54):
no other doctor had ever done. And then he asked
me the foremost important words that anyone should ask any patient.
So any practitioner out there should be asking their patients
as you, as a patient, should be hearing these words,
how do you feel?
Speaker 2 (09:10):
Yes, I knew you were going to say that, right.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
I never heard that from any other doctor I went
to either.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:20):
So with that information he was able to put those
pieces of the puzzle together and put me on the
right track with the right thyroid hormone replacement, with the
right supplementation. You know, we changed my diet a little bit,
but it wasn't the diet and the supplements and the exercise.
It wasn't that. And that shows you how important it
is to have your thyroid optimized, because it doesn't matter
(09:42):
what you do. If your thyroid is in the toilet,
nothing is going to work. We changed all that up
and he literally saved my life. So from that point on,
I changed careers. He became my mentor. I got into
fund five to seven minute insurance based visit with your
gp obgyn. You need to be doing functional medicine and
(10:05):
you need to be meeting for a long time to
really put the piece of the puzzle together.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
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Speaker 2 (10:54):
Okay, So the things that.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
I hear that are going to be really helpful to
people that are listening today, and I hope that my
viewers and listeners are take a piece of paper and
a pen and write notes, because this is so important
what you're telling us. The first thing that I hear
is how underdiagnosed or I'm misunderstood the thyroid is.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
And yet it is one of the.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Most important organs in the body. So why don't you
tell us more about that part of it? Why is
it so underdiagnosed? But before you do, I know that
doctor you found was eighty five years old when you
found him. So is he still alive today?
Speaker 3 (11:38):
He's still alive, but definitely not in practice, not in
practice anymore.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Yeah, you still interact with him?
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I do. I do. I love him to death and
he's just thrilled to see where I took the knowledge
that he imparted on me. So it's it's really nice
to give in touch.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yeah, okay, so let's let's do all things thyroid today.
This is so so important, And this is why I've
been so eager to you know, basically, you know, we
talked what three or four months ago, but I've been
so eager to have you on this show because I
know how many people are not what is it six
(12:16):
million people in America have a thyroid condition, and how
many more eight million are never diagnosed.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
Yes, yes, that's very nice, great stats.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yeah, I mean that's just completely amazing. And then we
have a sixty five percent obesity rate at least, So
how many of those sixty five percent, if they knew
that what their thyroid was doing or wasn't doing, might
actually not be obese. So we're just talking about the
(12:50):
weight issue, but there's so many other energy metabolic function,
which of course affects weight, heat, all these brain, brain,
cognitive function, all these parts of the body that do
not get productive are not productive if the thyroid is
(13:11):
not working. So let's dive in and talk to us
about all the different aspects of the thyroid, starting with
the key four, which is what you were given. But
what's not working and why is that? So if you
could just go for.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
It, yeah, yeah, let's do it. Okay, brief anatomy lesson
on the thyroid. So the thyroid butterfly shaped gland in
your neck. It is the master gland. So it controls
your blood pressure, your heart rate, your metabolism, your cell turnover,
so whether or not you're growing your hair, turning skin
(13:49):
cells over. Dry skin is a really big symptom when
you have hypothyrotism. If you think of hypothyroidism, think low
and slow, hypo low and slow. So if you think
of that, everything is going to be slowed down from
your mood, your brain processing, thinking, memory, heart rate, blood pressure,
body temperature. Many people are cold when the rest of
(14:12):
the room is totally comfortable. That motility. A lot of
thyroe patients do not go to the bathroom every single day.
And that's vital metabolism, fat burning, muscle building, I mean,
you name it. Everything goes low and slow when you
are in a hypothyroid state. So it really is the
master gland. Now that thyroid gland produces four different hormones
(14:37):
T one, T two, T three, T four, T one,
we can just set that aside. It really does nothing.
T four is inactive, where T three and T two
are active. So what does that mean? T four is inactive?
Meaning if we look at your cells on the outer
surface of the cell, you're going to have a receptor
site on every single cell in your body, trillions, trillions,
(15:00):
trillions of cells. Every single cell in your body has
a receptor slide on it for thyroid hormone, but for
T three thyrid hormone, so T four it's inactive, it
has to convert and it has to become T three
in order to get to the receptor site to do
its job, to turn on think of a lock and
(15:22):
key to turn on that cell, to turn on your metabolism,
to turn on your brain, to turn on your ATP
production at the mitochondria level, which is going to give
you energy. So that T four has to convert and
become T three. That conversion process I always I joke
and I say I equate it to running ten tough mutters,
(15:46):
because it's a really hard process for the body to do,
and there are so many things that get in the way,
so many things. So when we are looking at that conversion,
we test something called reverse T three. So when we're
looking at all the tests to get for your thyroid,
reverse T three is one of the most important tests
in addition to free T three. I'll get to that
(16:08):
in a minute. We look at reverse T three and
if that reverse T three is above A twelve, we go, oh,
you know, this person is having issues converting their T
four over into T three, and we do things to
rectify that. Now, when we're looking at the active thyrid hormones.
There's T three and T two. We test free T
(16:29):
three meaning the unbound ready to attach to your cell
active thyrid hormone, and with T two. There is no
test for T two because and we can dive more
into what is T two and how it can help people,
there's no test for T two, but it is an
active thyrid hormone, and anyone can take T two because
(16:53):
it's over the counter, whereas T four and T three
are under prescriptions. T two is over the counter.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Yeat interrupting.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
But why is there no test for T two.
Speaker 3 (17:04):
That's a great question. Honestly, I think if we really
unpack it and look at it, it's because T two
is in supplemental form, and we know big Pharma wants
to push people down the medication route. Now I don't
have a problem with thyroid medication. I do not. I
do not think that it is under the big pharma
label of you know, big Farmer wants to put you
(17:26):
on a statin or an antidepressant. They want to put
you on these band aid prescription drugs instead of using
biodentical hormones or using thyroid replacement therapy. But still, I
mean We're still talking about the big farmer world, and
that still comes down to if we test for something,
there better be a script that we can write for
(17:49):
it afterwards. So if we test for T two, then
that better be in medication form prescription form, and it's not.
It's available over the counter in supplemental form, and Big
doesn't make money off of supplements. So I mean, if
we really unpack it, that's that's what I believe, because
there there is a T two measurement when we're looking
(18:09):
at the studies done on T two, but it's not
universal to where you could go to lab core and
order it.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Okay, So just T two necessary to affect T three production.
Speaker 3 (18:24):
No, that's a great question. They work independently, Okay. So
let's say we have someone that we know they need
that active thyroid hormones. So if you go back to
my story, I was given T four, it is inactive.
It did not work. I saw my functional medicine practitioner
put me on armor thyroid, which is a blend of
(18:46):
T four and T three and eventually moves me to
T three only because I do not convert well, I
have a genetic snip that prevents conversion. Yeah, so when
we're looking at that, yes, I am on T three only,
but I still take T two because T two doesn't
affect my thyroid function. It doesn't affect my thyroid numbers,
(19:09):
and it works at the mitochondria level to increase my
base of metabolic rate. So I'll still take two, take
T two for my metabolism for fat burning for energy,
but I'll be on my T three medication prescription as well.
So kind of doing two different things.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Okay, And so let's talk about the thyroid stimulating hormone,
which is not a thyroid hormone. It's a pituitary So
can you tell us how that affects the T two
and T three and T four.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, that's how where does that come in?
Speaker 3 (19:46):
I love that you said that because I say that
all the time. It is not a thyroid hormone, not
a thyrod hormone. It is a brain hormone, but tuitary hormone.
So TSH is it's like you know when you're when
your kid, let's say, leaves toys all over the room
and you're like, Johnny, you gotta go pick up your toys,
and he doesn't listen, and your voice gets louder. You're like, Johnny,
(20:09):
got go pick up those toes, and then you know
it starts to get louder, louder, louder. Yeah, so you're
screaming and then Johnny maybe kind of sort of listen.
So KSh is the same way. It's it's talking at
your thyroid and then it starts to get louder when
the thyroid doesn't listen, Hey, thyroid, you gotta make more
T foor and T three. Hey thyroid, coin you're not
(20:31):
doing your job. You got to make more T thor
and T three. So as that TSH goes up, think
of it as getting louder. The brain is yelling at
the thyroid, noticing that it's it's not doing its job,
and it's poking it and it's yelling at it. It's like,
come on, trying to stimulate the thyroid to make more
thyroid hormone. Now, we don't look at TSH as the
(20:55):
bl end all marker like they do in conventional medicine.
In conventional medicine, doctors have learned you test TSH and
if TSH is above a four point five, which is
the current cutoff in labs, then you give T four.
That's all. That is all they have learned, and we
know so much more than that functional medicine. First of all,
in functional medicine, we have a totally different optimal range,
(21:17):
meaning we want your TSH to actually be below at
qwo right, and even that, we'll still see patients come
in with a beautiful TSH A one, a point five,
and yet when we look at the other tests that
we should be looking at, we still see that they
have hypothyroidism or hashimotos because TSH is not the b
(21:39):
all end all test. So it's nice to look at
if it's super high and it's flagged high and it's red,
that tells us ah, your brain is screaming at your
thyroid because your thyroid is not doing a good job
at making those thyroid hormones. But if it's not screaming,
we still have to look further, so.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Is the thyroid Like that could be like in the
blood work, like cortisol, where if you take a prick
of the finger or a vial of blood at a
certain time, you could have one level, but later on
in the day or based on your stress level or
other activities that day, what you ate someone does that
(22:21):
affect they blood levels of the thyroid. In other words,
is it one of those organs that is very sensitive
to the timing of when the blood is drawn.
Speaker 3 (22:35):
Yes and no. So we like to do labs in
the morning when we're checking thyroid because TSH will change
throughout the day. But when you're looking at the really
really important markers like free T three and reverse T
three and then your antibodies, yeah, those aren't really going
to fluctuate that much based on the time of day.
You're not going to fluctuate based on what you eat.
(22:57):
Stress might affect the reverse TEA three a little bit,
but we can kind of get a really good idea
of that when we talk to the person, ask them
about their stress levels, what they're dealing with, and see
if that's playing a role with the reverse T three.
But mainly it's it's number one, you take it in
the morning. Number two. If you are on thyroid medication
of any kind, then you want to hold that for
(23:21):
twenty eighteen to twenty four hours before your labs, especially
if it contains T three in it. You want to
hold your thyro medication. And then you also don't want
to take biotin for five to seven days or before
a thyroid lab.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Oh why is that?
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Maybe it can affect the TSH and the free T three.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Oh well, that's something I don't think any most people
have never heard that.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Ye.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Biotuine is in a lot of supplements. I mean I
take it sublingually in the morning, just but I know
I've seen it in the ingredients and other supplements that
I take. So that would be something you would really
have to investigate before you do your test.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yes, oh, yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Okay, so tell us about the antibodies. Let's just say you, well,
first person, before I asked that question, what why is
the Barnes method used instead of blood work? Because they
say that you could be normal in your thyroid blood work,
and still if you ask that important question that you
(24:28):
mentioned earlier, how do you feel you still have hypothyroidism?
So then they say use the Barns method. Do you
want to talk about that or is that somewhat antiquated?
Speaker 3 (24:41):
I think it's pretty antiquated because we can get really
we can get a very accurate picture through blood. Now,
I do like blood over saliva. A lot of times
I'll get that question is saliva accurate? I have tested
saliva with hormones with thyrol, and I cannot find it
good consistency with that. The only time I use saliva
(25:03):
is with if we're testing cortisol through the day, like
a four point saliva cortisol panel. But other than that,
just a nice, good old fashioned blood draw.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
Something here and then doing urine, saliva or stool. So yeah,
that's good. But I all the years I've been testing
my thyroid, I was told that you could come out
with levels that are normal, but your thyroid you still
don't feel.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Well well then you know, then we have to break
down normal versus optimal. So that that comes back more
to discussing the standard lab value range on that blood
test that you get. So on any blood test, you're
going to see over here like a reference range, and
that's what your conventional doctor is looking at to go, oh, look,
(25:52):
your labs are normal. So the first doctor I saw,
remember I got that yep, your normal air quotes here normal. Yeah,
and that's what they're looking at.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Now.
Speaker 3 (26:00):
It's important to remember that that standard lab value range,
that reference range was taken from groups of sick people.
They did not stop to say, you know, we're testing
all of these people, but we have sixty five percent
of the morrow best, like you quoted in the beginning,
which is true. And then we have people with cancer,
we have heart disease, we have these people that aren't
taking care of themselves, they're eat McDonald's whatever. Whereas functional
(26:24):
medicine comes in and we narrow that down and we say,
let's test the badasses. Let's test that seventy year old
over there that's still schemed down a mountain. Let's test
that sixty five year old that has like a rock
hard muscular body, and let's figure out what their levels are,
(26:44):
because that's going to give us that optimal range. That's
where people are going to feel their best, not out
here in the standard lab value range that's wide and
vast and huge and who god knows what kind of
sick people were tested for this. We want to take
that narrow bullseye optimal range and that's where I want
people to be, where we know there's a ninety nine
(27:08):
point nine percent chance you are going to feel your
best in that range.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
Okay, so let's talk about what those levels are for
the ones that we've already discussed, the T one, two, three,
the TSH you said below two, but just tell us
what the optimal level should be for those.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
Sure, we'd love to so TSH we want below a two. Yeah,
free T four we don't care about. One thing to
note is if free T four is higher, if that
is in the upper quadrant of the range, So it
would be usually like a one point three, one point four,
one point five or above. That can actually indicate that
(27:47):
you have a conversion problem or that you're on too
much T four. Then we move on to free T three.
We want that in the upper quadrant of the range.
So this makes it very universal for labs. When we
say up quadrant. Just take that standard reference range, cut
it into four, and that's where you want to be
for the free T three is the upper quadrant or
(28:09):
a little bit over, it's okay. If you're a little
bit over, not a problem. If you're flagged high. Reverse
T three is relatively universal as well most lab tests,
even in other countries. We want that below at twelve.
Speaker 2 (28:22):
Okay.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
And then then there are the TPO and the TGA
antibodies and these tests for hashimotos.
Speaker 2 (28:28):
Yeah, that's where the depth space.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
But I'm going to be sure we cover the the
ones we've already talked about yees. Okay, so what reverse
the reverse T There's not a reverse T four.
Speaker 3 (28:40):
Right, No, no, just reverse T three.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Yeah, so those are the ones T one, T two,
T three, all T four and reverse.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
Well, there's no test for T one, there's no test
for T two. So we're just gonna look at TSH three,
T three, free T four or reversese T three. And
now we have the antibodies.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
Okay, all right, so let's talk about those antibodies because
those are really if you have an autoab conditioner called hashimotos.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yes, oh yes, so those antibodies we want at zero.
And this is really important for people to take notes
on because there are many times, and I have heard
this across the board from patients that have come into
the practice. They've seen conventional they've even seen functional medicine
doctors who told them you do not have hashimotos. Then
(29:32):
I look at their lives and even their history of labs,
and I said, well, wait a minute, back here, last year,
your TPO showed that you had twenty antibodies and your
TGA had five. Oh but wait, it wasn't flagged in
the reference range. So let me give you a little analogy.
So you'll understand what I'm talking about here. When we're
(29:53):
talking about antibodies, I want you to think of them
as soldiers that are attacking your thyroid. So really, I
mean any antibody for any autoimmune condition you could test
rhumatard arthritis antibodies, those are soldiers attacking your joints. So
for hashimotos, these are soldiers attacking your thyroid because they
think that your thyroid is a bad guy. They're just
(30:14):
really confused. Whenever we're talking about autoimmunity, your body is
confused that thinks that an organ or a joint, or
or your small intestine or whatever it is, is a
bad guy, so they've attack it. So those antibodies are soldiers.
If you think about it that way, then this next
part it's going to make sense. So we do a test,
and let's say that standard lamb value range for thyroid
(30:37):
peroxidaseantibodies TPO is less than thirty four. That's a very
very common reference range for the TPO antibodies less than
thirty four. So you come in at a twenty and
your doctor, in particular functional doctor that I that I
that one of my patients saw before coming to us
who told her you don't have poshimotos, looked at that
(31:01):
twenty marker for her TPO, looked at the standard reference range, Oh,
it has to be less than thirty four, and says
you don't have hashimotos. So I go, uh, okay, So wait,
you're gaining weight, you're losing your hair, you have no energy,
you don't poop every day, But you don't have hashimotos.
Are we just gonna wait until those twenty soldiers build
(31:24):
up to until they get to thirty five, when you
actually get that h next to it and it turns red.
At that point in time, do we say, okay, now
you have hashimotos. Now we can do something. Meanwhile, you're
thirty pounds heavier, you can't get off the damn couch
because you're too tired, You've lost all of your hair,
(31:47):
you have no libido, you're bloated all the time. Why
don't we address it now when we see the first
signs of those soldiers building an army and say, yeah,
you have hashimotos because you have antibodies. So long story short,
I want those TPO and TGA antibodies at zero, okay, zero?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
So what's the difference between the two.
Speaker 3 (32:11):
They're just two different markers. So TPO is way more
common and tga A can when we have positive thyroglobulin antibodies.
That number one does indicate hashimotos but can be correlated
to thyroid cancer, not always, I don't like to scare people,
but can be correlated to thyroid cancer being present.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Okay, so let's just say you're above one and you
do have the antibody, so you do have motives. How
does other autoimmune conditions affect that those results?
Speaker 3 (32:46):
So one thing to keep in mind is autoimmune begets autoimmune.
Where we see one, we see more than one. So
it's not that the other autoimmune conditions are affecting the
Hashimoto antibodies, but we tend to get a spread with
with autoimmunity. So let's say those soldiers start to build
and we see this more when people are really really
(33:07):
high in their antibodies, and the hundreds and the thousands,
and what ends up happening is those soldiers go out
they attack the thyroid because they know it's a bad guy.
And then let's say, okay, let's move over here to
someone's small intestine, and now you have celiac and this
can also occur with the consumption of gluten because gluten
(33:33):
looks like the thyroid gland. It's called molecular mimicry, So
it looks under the microscope very similar to the thyroid gland.
And then those soldiers see gluten come into the body
think it's another bad guy invader. They launch an attack
and you start to build your army, and as that
army builds, it naturally goes to other places of the body.
(33:55):
So we normally do see more than one autoimmune condition
when we see one present.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Okay, so the other question I had is how does
leaky gut and other microbiome disorders LPs and sodular and included,
how do they affect the thyroid?
Speaker 3 (34:17):
So that's going to set you up more for an
autoimmune for autoimmune being present. So we use that three
legged stool analogy with autoimmune conditions. I think it's perfect.
So on the one leg, you have the genetic predisposition
someone in your family has some autoimmune condition. It doesn't
have to be hashemotives, it can be any autoimmune. Then
we have that other leg of the stool, which is
(34:38):
leaky gut, which these days I mean who doesn't have
leaki gut. These with the amount of chemicals and toxins
that were being exposed to I mean chlorine fluoride, BPA,
food dye, which hopefully that's changing, but just all of
these these toxic chemicals just destroy the gut lining. So
(34:59):
it's very very common for leaky get to be present
in a person. High levels of zangulin, which is an
inflammatory marker that we can measure, and then we have
that third leg of the stool, which is a trigger.
So you have somebody that has leaki gut, has that
genetic predisposition. And then let's say they go into perimenopause,
(35:19):
which I always say thyrol pause. The definition of thyropause.
It firopause affects everyonoman over the age of forty because
it's when your thyroid hormone levels declined due to fluctuating
bioidentical hormone level. So do when your progesteroneh you're estrogen
(35:40):
when your testosterone starts to fluctuate like that in perimenopause.
And this even happens in pregnancy, ladies, So even something
as natural as being pregnant or even in puberty, any
kind of hormonal roller coaster fluctuations can turn on that
switch of hashimotos of autoimmune.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Okay, and then what about candeta.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
And Candida plays a role, but it's not a direct
it's not really a direct role. So more with candida.
When when someone has hypothyroidism, I will see blood sugar
dishregulation and insulin resistance. Okay, nine times out of ten
that will be present. And then we know that that
candida can be fueled from having that insulin resistance from
(36:26):
consumption of carb sugar. So it just kind of it's
more of feeding a downstream effect of the thyroid.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
Okay, good, Okay, So you just reference the other hormones.
So let's talk about that for movement. How what should
the optimum levels be of the other hormones that are
going to keep your thyroid healthy and free of automobile?
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Yes? Yes, so important to talk about the other sex
hormones too, And also important to to note for the
audience that you know, you could find a thyroid expert
over here or someone that claims to be and a
hormone expert over here, and you'll ask the hormone expert
if they do thyrom and they'll say no, And you
(37:09):
ask the thyroid expert. If they do hormones and they
say no, that should be a huge red flag where
you want to run far away from that practitioner because
those two go together. So that's why when I say
I'm a thyroate and hormone expert, I'm a thyron hormone expert,
because they have to go together. You cannot address one
without the other. So I'll explain why. Number one, we
know that the thyroid itself can throw someone into early menopause.
(37:34):
It will oh when the thyroid is low, it will
push a man's testosterone into the toilet. Every time I
see a man with hashimotives, and we know it affects
women more than men. But every time I see these
poor dudes with hashimotives, they're testosterones in the toilet. It's
just a shame. So we know that there's an interplane.
Now on the flip side, the reason why men have
(37:56):
less autoimmune in general is because they in general have
higher testosterol levels. So even a low T for a
man is still higher than most women, right, So they
have that protective layer. And that's what testosterone does, is
it protects us against autoimmune. So in addition, to giving
(38:16):
us motivation and drive and strength and changing our body
composition and lighting up our brain and helping us think
and focus. It also protects us against autoimmune which is beautiful.
So we need testosterl levels to be optimal. Optimal testosterone
levels for a woman total testosterone I always want to
(38:38):
see above a fifty, so fifty would be minimal. And
side note, most labs cut you off at forty eight,
so in order to even hit the bottom of the
barrel optimal range, you have to be flagged high, which
is comical. It's like, oh my gosh, okay, So the
standard lab value range doesn't even encompass where women should start.
(39:00):
And then the free testosterone I like that in the
upper half of the range for women when we're talking
testosterone for men, at least at least above an eight
hundred I'm sorry, even if you're seventy eighty years old,
you should have an eight hundred total testosterone or above,
(39:23):
which means that you should be on TRT three testosterone.
We like it twenty or above, but usually a little
bit higher, like it around like fifty or whatever for
men for free testosterone. But then we go into the
estradal on progesterone levels so important for both sexes. Estra
dial for men, we want it below a thirty. Estra
(39:44):
dial for women we want above a fifty, but really
closer to like eighty to one twenty independent of age.
That's where you're going to feel your best for estra
dial because estra dil helps with vaginal lubrication, helps with
our brain, lowers our of Alzheimer's, helps with our skin,
our hair, hair falling out is huge. Minestra dial levels
(40:07):
are low, and then we move into progesterone, which progesterone
helps us sleep, protects us against cancer, helps with osteoporosis.
So does estra dial. I mean, there are so many
benefits to hormones, we'd be here for an hour listing
them all. But progesterone levels here's where it gets a
little tricky. So if you're taking an oral and this
is very very disputed. So if you're listening to this
(40:29):
and you're like, well, I heard so and so on
this other podcast, say the opposite, We're both right, because
there's really no I cannot find a definitive, agreed upon,
solid answer to this. If you are taking an oral progesterone,
which is beautiful because it helps you sleep, It calms
(40:49):
your brain, helps with anxiety. If you're taking an oral progesterone,
there's a really good chance it's not going to show
up on blood. So we can dose progesterone based on
how you feel, and that's where those foremost important words
come in. How do you feel if you're if you
haven't sawn me, if you're anxious, for your jittery, if
you know your just mood is off. The classic low
(41:10):
progesterone sign and symptom for women is when your family
or friends are going, why are you so bitchy all
of a sudden, It's true, it's like, uh yeah, your
low progesterone. Progesterone helps with PMDD, it helps with heavy bleeding,
helps with irregular cycles. It should be given to girls
(41:31):
for birth control over birth control, because birth control is synthetic.
Real progesterone is real. And even men benefit from a
little bit of progesterone because men have anxiety, men have insomnia.
Men protection against cancer too, so you can give them
a little bit of progesterone as well.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
So what was the level of the progesterone that talked.
Speaker 3 (41:52):
About, Well, that's the thing. So Okay, Optimally, we like
for women to be in like the double digits with
progesterone when tested on days nineteen to twenty two of
your cycle. If you're not cycling, then you can test whenever.
But that's the thing. It's like, if a woman comes
to me and she's not on any progesterone and we
see her PA level is like a point one or
(42:15):
I've seen it like indetectable less than point three on
the lab, well, then of course you need progesterone. Really,
I mean, if you're over forty, you should be looking
at thyroid hormone, testosterone, progesterone, and estradil. You should be
looking at them all because hormones give us life and
they give us quality of life. But we can't necessarily
(42:35):
go by the number because I've also replaced someone's progesterone
and I have a patient. We have her on six hundred,
eight hundred milligrams of progesterone, and we still can't get
that blood number over a five. But who cares because
she's sleeping and she's calm, and she feels fantastic, So
(42:55):
we just go, okay, don't really care about the number
we're dose and basing this on how you feel.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
What about dha D I just.
Speaker 3 (43:07):
Like it to be in range, you know, a little
bit like upper quadrant of the range, over half of
the range. If it's over range, I always then this
is really interesting and something I see quite often. I go,
are you taking any dha? They go no, I go, well,
then you're stressed because when that DHA goes high and
you're not taking an eight or I have them comb
through their sow you sure it's not hidden somewhere and
(43:27):
your supplements like biot in like, oh, look it's in
my multi but yeah, I have them look to make
sure that they're not taking dhia you're getting exposed to it,
and then if it's high, then I go, then you're
really stressed out.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Okay, So what about some of the other supplements like
divide with D three, calcium, magnesium, some of the other
supplements that can affect your thigh?
Speaker 2 (43:50):
Right? What are they and what should they be? Level wise?
Speaker 3 (43:54):
So these are I'll go over some of the what
I call the no dues supplements, so meaning of course
you're gonna take these every day. So that's going to
be your iodine, which is very very important for thyroid.
If you are not taking iodine, it's going to show
up as low. If you are taking it, it's going
to show up as high. Really, no need to test
(44:14):
for it. You just take it every selling the body
needs it.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
Can you take iodine on your skin topically rather than
gesting it?
Speaker 3 (44:24):
It's not as effective. So a lot of people do
that as a as a test. It's kind of like
an old school test of iodine that if you put
it on your skin, you see how fast it absorbs,
and that kind of tells you if you need or
you don't. Yeah, I've interviewed doctor Brownstein. He's like, no,
but not, you know, and he's the guru of iodine.
(44:44):
I love this man's brain on iodine. He's written so
many books. And yeah, it's just not as effective for
a test, and it's not as as effective to be absorbed.
Is that putting idon on a boo boo or something?
That's fine?
Speaker 2 (44:57):
That is that deal? Brownstein from Hawaii?
Speaker 3 (45:00):
This is doctor David Brownstein.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Oh okay, because there was a meal in Hawaii when
I was living on Kawhi. And then what about selenium?
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Selenium that's a great question because so many fabric patients
overdoe selenium because they read it in a blog. The
selenium is fantastic for your thyroid, fantastic for conversion, but
you can take too much. A lot of people will
take two hundred and four hundred micrograms of selenium every
single day. You really only need one hundred every other day.
Or I say go natural and just eat like a
(45:33):
couple of brazil nuts. And some people will say, you
can't get enough selenium from brazil nuts. Listen, whenever we
can get it from our food, let's get it from
our food. If it happens to be you know, twenty
five fifty micrograms in your multi that's fine. Just eat
a brazil nut every day and that's going to cover you.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
And if you overdose some celenium, what's the result.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
You can push up your reverse TEA three and actually
hinder conversion of T four to T three.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
Why is that?
Speaker 3 (46:01):
You know? I don't know the mechanism of action. I
just see it as it's it's one of the things,
one of the many things we look at when we're
looking at elevated reverse T three and what triggers that.
But whenever I see labs and someone is flagged high
on Selenam. I'm like, let's back and down because that
could be driving up your reverse T three. Let's back
(46:21):
that on down.
Speaker 1 (46:23):
And I was told that you should always keep brazil
nuts in the freezer, so that's where mine are. And
then I take them out and I put them in
a grinder and I just use it like on top
of a smoothie or something.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
Is that all right to do?
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Oh? Yeah, I'm gonna start doing that. That sounds good.
Speaker 5 (46:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Brazil nuts by themselves are pretty hard, and they don't
always taste this good, but when you when you grind them,
they become a powder and they taste really good. So
that's what I usually put that with the flat seats.
You know, because you're a critical nutritus as well as
a functional medicine person.
Speaker 2 (47:03):
Doctor, what is the diet?
Speaker 1 (47:07):
And I know this is going to kill a lot
of my viewers because they're not going to like what
they hear, But what is the diet that you would
optimally propose for hashimotos or for anyone who has a
thyroid issue. They don't just don't feel good.
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Sure, well, I always say that your labs tell us
how you should eat. So when we're looking at the
breakdown of We'll break this down into a couple different sections.
When we're looking at macronutrient breakdown, everyone hashimotos, hypothyroid or not.
Every single person should be consuming at least one gram
(47:44):
per pound of lean body mass of protein. Hands down.
I mean, your your muscle is your organ of longevity.
It's going to protect you as you age. It's going
to protect your muscular skeletal system, it's going to protect
your month. I mean, it's going to protect everything. It's
going to make you more metabolically active, it's going to
protect you if you against falls. It's just going to
make you look better obviously body composition wise, so we
(48:06):
need amino acids. We need protein to feel those muscles
and to keep our muscles. So one grand per pound
of lean body mouse. When it comes to the fat
and carb ratio, that goes back to your labs. Are
you insulin resistant? So when we're looking at insulin, I
like that below a six fasting insulin. And when we're
looking at a one C which is a three month
(48:26):
snapshot of your blood glucose levels, I like that four
point eight to five point two. So many times I
see patients coming in with an A one C have
a five point five, five point six, five point seven.
Their doctor said nothing to them, and I'm like, well,
per functional medicine, you are diabetic. Now is that coming
(48:47):
from your thyroid function being off? And because these are
the people, they could say, I eat keto, I eat carnivore,
and my blood sugar should not be a high. Right,
that's coming from your thyroid throwing off your glucose regulation
and glucose metabolism. But and then we throw in things
like I have blood sugar fixer in my line. That's burberine.
(49:09):
I love that for lowering insulin. I love the T too,
the T too that's in thyroid fixer. I love that
because it's going to increase your metabolism. So as you
lose weight, you can you can balance out your insulin
and glucose in a better way. You can bring in
more carbohydrates as your body sheds more fat, so you
don't have to go as low carb as you were
(49:30):
in the beginning. So that and then that also T
two also helps with insulin resistance, So I love that.
But it really the carves and fat breakdown is going
to be dependent on whether or not you were insulin resistant. Now,
I have had some patients come in who, yes, they
are hypothyroid, but their bloodshir control is fine, so they
(49:52):
can get away with more clean, good sources of carbohydrates
than can the person that is insulin resistant.
Speaker 1 (49:59):
Okay, okay, so then okay, So what should be the
diet the optimal diet with respect to gluten right back
to well, you already talked about the protein, but you
didn't say what kind of protein.
Speaker 3 (50:14):
So animal based protein, right, yeah, not non land based protein,
so animal based protein that contains amino acid. So this
does not mean beans or fake meat or soy. We
should actually be soy free. I don't care if you
use a little bit of soy sauce, but you should
not be consuming soy milk, soy protein, and amma all
(50:37):
of that because that can downregulate your thyroid function. Gluten free, yes,
across the board, because of what we talked about earlier.
Gluten can kick up autoimmunity and build your soldiers adequate
amounts of protein and really just the you know, the
no brainer stuff that I know it's for your audience,
it would be a no brainer for the general population.
(50:57):
You do have to kind of drive this home over
an over again, get out the sugar, the seed oils,
and just quit with the processed garbage. I mean, I
know it's convenient, and even I, of course I will
grab something processed in a box and a bag or whatever,
but I also try and get it as minimal process
(51:18):
as possible. So I have these new rooten free crackers.
I found it Whole Foods and they're made with almond
flour and they have maybe like five ingredients, all of
which I can pronounce. Yeah, okay, But if you're picking
up something and you look at that label and it
has a bolt of ingredients that you can pronounce as
canola oil, seed oil, anything like that in it, high
ferctose corns are my god, that is horrendous for you.
(51:41):
You gotta just avoid that.
Speaker 1 (51:43):
It's horrendous for everything, not just your thy right, so everything.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Yeah, hopefully this.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
If our cake gets confirmed, we're going to have a
champion for food integrity. And this is going to make
a huge difference the people and the common person who
isn't that disciplined or it doesn't really know that they're
supposed to be looking at these ingredients.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
You know, yes, yes, I'm very excited.
Speaker 2 (52:13):
Yes, And what about way protein? Is that all right?
Speaker 1 (52:17):
I mean is black toase, okay, and eggs and that
source of protein.
Speaker 3 (52:24):
I'm totally fine with that if you can handle it.
Wave protein has a tendency to spike insulin, so if
you are insulin resistant, I always push those people toward
the beef isolate, like collagen based types of protein. Beef
isolate is my favorite grasp that of course. But the
way protein, you know, if you can, if you can
(52:46):
handle it, if you take in a protein powder and
you all of a sudden look six months pregnant after
taking it and your stomach is rumbling, then maybe don't
do that, Like that's your mondy telling you that you
really can't handle it. And yeah, you can start off
with some digestive enzymes. That's really helpful for digesting and
breaking down your protein and assimilating the protein properly. But
(53:08):
if your body respond like that, that's kind of a
red flag, Like.
Speaker 1 (53:11):
Yeah, do that again, how do you feel? That's always
the sixty four thousand dollars question. So all right, they
just flagged me, and that means we're out almost out
of time.
Speaker 2 (53:25):
So I'm going to ask.
Speaker 1 (53:26):
You to tell us more about your supplements and if
you could spend a minute or two and then tell
us what kind of wonderful, generous gift you're offering to
our viewers today.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
Absolutely. Okay, so we kind of unpacked this tea too
a little bit, but I'm going to give you a
thirty second breakdown of it. So T two I have
in my thyroid fixer product and my metabolism fixer product, right,
and you don't have to have a fire problem and
take fired fixer. But that was my baby. That was
the very first product in the line, and I named it,
(54:00):
of course after the brand after me. But I have
been researching T two for fifteen years and it is amazing.
It actually has over thirty years of research on it.
What it does is it increases your base on metabolic grades,
so literally the amount of fat that you're burning at rest,
it will increase that so you get more metabolism. It
works at the mitochondria level to produce to stimulate ATP production,
(54:23):
so that's going to produce nice steady energy through the day,
So no hives, no lows, no caffeinated stimulation, it's just
that nice cellular energy that we should be experiencing throughout
the day. So it improves fat burning, it improves energy function.
It browns white atapose tissue. So that's why we're all
jumping into cold plunges to actually, you know, brown and
(54:44):
stimulate that white, squishy fat and turn it brown. It
helps with it helps with insulin resistance, it helps with
faty liver disease, It improves colester all panels. And it's
just it's non stimulant. So you're not going to take
that fat burner right back in the day, remember the
fat burners that we thought, oh my god, we're gonna
have a heart attack. It doesn't do that. So it's
(55:05):
a beautiful fat burner.
Speaker 2 (55:07):
Ephedra and caffeine.
Speaker 3 (55:09):
Yeah, I mean we all damn near died from that.
So yeah, and when we look at the human studies,
we are seeing an average of a nine pound weight
loss or four percent body fat reduction in twenty eight days.
So it really is amazing. And I think that this
(55:31):
should I think T two should come in as the
forefront of fighting this obesity epidemic that we have. Rather
than giving everyone these expensive glps where you lose muscle
and you lose facial fat and you get o zepic
face and a flat butt. You know, let's use something
that's safe and T two does not burn your muscle.
(55:53):
It leaves your muscle alone. So even when you listen
to trainers, to professional bodybuilders, professional ficket fitness and things,
your athletes, they will tell you that they only use
T two. They do not allow their athletes to abuse
T three because it can burn muscles, so they only
use T two so it protects your muscle. So we
have that in Thyroid Fixer Metabolism Fixer. Also in those
(56:15):
both are it's l tyracin. That's one of the ingredients
in them as well, which helps your thirey exlam produce
more T for and T three. So that's a bonus
for everyone across the board. And yes, we are giving
your audience a twenty percent discount. So anything on the
Fixer site, you go to better Life doctor dot com,
(56:36):
forward slash ageless and you use the code ageless twenty
and that is going to give you twenty percent off.
So you can actually try Thyroid Fixer Metabolism Fixer boost
that metabolism and you'll see dramatic differences.
Speaker 1 (56:51):
Okay, so let's say is what about absorption. What if
someone's really toxic and they're not absorbing their supplements through
their liver, is that going to affect Is there anything
in your products that helps to improve absorption.
Speaker 3 (57:07):
So we'll do a couple of different things. Number One,
I do have liver Fixer in my line, so I
might put someone on. If someone is that extreme, I'll
put them on Liver Fixer. Will run that for maybe
two three weeks before adding another supplement in. Okay, and
then if we are adding another supplement in here's the thing.
Metabolism Fixer is in powder form and it tastes really good.
(57:29):
It actually tastes like tang but it's naturally sweetened with stevia.
It's actually sweetened with ono sweet, which is a fermented stevia.
So even people who can't tolerate stevia can can tolerate
the firm and take fermented stevia. Yeah, and you know,
you just put that in your water and you sip
on it, and that way it is more readily absorbed
that way, So anyone with absorption issues or major gut issues,
(57:53):
I would say use the metabolism fixer because it's powder.
Speaker 1 (57:55):
Okay, good, good, Well, Amy, I just I I want
to keep going because it's so fascinating and you have well,
first of all, you're probably one of the best looking guests.
Speaker 2 (58:08):
I've ever had, so sorry to thank you.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
Wonderful male guests who I have some amazing male you know,
fitness people and doctors who are really.
Speaker 2 (58:18):
In the know, but you take the cake.
Speaker 1 (58:20):
So anyway, I tell you that you could come on
and you have so much energy, so different than where you.
Speaker 2 (58:26):
Were twenty five years ago.
Speaker 3 (58:28):
Yeah, you're not kidding, So thank you for being here.
Speaker 2 (58:31):
I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1 (58:32):
I had this terrible cold and I'm not myself, but
I think we did a good job.
Speaker 2 (58:36):
I think it's great.
Speaker 1 (58:37):
But it's all because of you that you know so
much about your subject and people are going to be
writing to us. We're going to run a couple of
reels to get you on exposure on Instagram, and I
know you have a podcast, so anything that you want
to do with us on the interview for your media
social media, you know, please feel free to collaborate with us.
Speaker 3 (59:02):
Absolutely, we absolutely will just chag us and we'll post
it ourselves to you.
Speaker 1 (59:06):
I love it all right, Well, you have a great weekend,
and thank you again.
Speaker 3 (59:09):
Thanks Michelle okay, take care,
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