Food Alert ! Gluten and your Thyroid. What you don't know, but should.

Every now and then we come across something that we think the whole world should know about, kind of like GMO foods.  Gluten is another. Today, more than 1 in 133 Americans suffer from gluten related health problems while an even higher percentage of the population goes undiagnosed with an emerging condition called ‘gluten sensitivity.’ From a website doctorauer.com we discovered, but have not yet fact checked this following historical mention:

“In 1843, a physician named Stanislas Tanchou spoke at the Paris Medical Society Conference. He claimed that he could predict the cancer rates in major European cities over the next 50 years. He based his predictions on the percentage of grains being consumed in each major city. What is astonishing is that, over time, his predictions turned out to be correct. In the cities that had the highest grain consumption, cancer rates were the highest. This is in stark contrast to the fact that in populations who did not consume grains, cancer did not exist."  - article link

Here at The Gait Guys, being doctors who treat athletes and non-athletes, we have written about gluten in previous blog posts on "Gluten Ataxia” (Link)  and Running yourself into Hormone Trouble (link) because we felt it was important to spread the wisdom. We even recently talked about gluten and how it can damage your thyroid profile and gut via one of the gluten subfractions called gliadin on podcast #12 (link).

These dialogues seemed to spur one of our brilliant and engaged readers and listeners.  Jim sent us a series of emails which you will find below.  We obtained his permission to reproduce the emails (thx Jim !). We will also welcome him to chime in further on Facebook when this post cross-links if he has further input.

We are building a wonderful and brilliant readership and fast growing podcast following. We have smart folks joining the brethren here at The Gait Guys ! And we are blessed to have Jim, and celebrate his homework and knowledge here. 

Everyone should read this, especially if you have tested gluten insensitive but still have gut issues or immune issues. You may have your eyes opened ! 

PS * at the very bottom of this blog post you will find a link to a wonderful video youtube lecture by Dr Osborne. If you watch the first 4 minutes you will learn that corn, millet, oats, rice, rye, sorgum and barley all have their own types of gluten in them.  You will clearly understand why a sensitive person MIGHT get away with rice but not wheat. Hence why this is a very difficult problem for the average consumer. 

Thanks Jim !

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 Greetings Gait Guys!

   I met Dr. Allen at the May NSCA conference at CSU. I remember him mentioning endurance athletes being prone to hypothyroidism. I’ve been researching hypothyroid issues since 2007, so of course that piqued my interest. Recently I came across the book “Mastering Leptin” by Byron Richards, CCN. I was familiar with Mr. Richards expertise in thyroid issues from some You Tube videos of his, but I wasn’t prepared for the paradigm changing information in this book. As it turns out, leptin is the master controller of our metabolism.

   Leptin is produced in white adipose tissue, and is supposed to signal satiety when one has had enough to eat. If body fat gets too low for too long with not enough leptin getting to the brain, the brain will signal the endocrine system to go into a starvation/hibernation metabolic reduction as it thinks one is starving, and is trying to save energy until food is found. On the other hand, if there is too much leptin from too much fat for too long, the brain goes into leptin resistance, and the end results are the same, as the brain isn’t getting enough leptin and thinks one is starving (this is a major cause of obesity, besides of our toxic "food" supply, and explains why most calorie restriction diets ultimately fail).

   So, it may well be that endurance athletes may actually just need to put on a couple of pounds of fat to get leptin back up to normal. 

   I cannot recommend strongly enough getting a copy of this book and getting the full story. There’s also a trick involving calcium to re-activate the liver’s conversion of T-4 to T-3, thus re-activating proper thyroid metabolism. I know it works, as it’s worked for me. I had no idea such a thing was possible.

 

I forgot to emphasize that the thyroid is the first endocrine gland to be targeted along with the adrenals. Mr. Richards also emphasizes that there is what he calls the leptin/insulin/adrenal resistance triad. Any problem with one will eventually result in problems with the others. Seeing as this book was first published in 2002, I can’t believe that this hasn’t caught on. It was updated in 2005 (or 6) and again in 2009 (I personally prefer the 2nd edition).

In Nora Gedgadaus’ book “Primal Body, Primal Mind”, she explains that there are actually 12 subfractions of the gliadin protein (gliadin is a biproduct of gluten metabolism). According to her, at least at the time she wrote the book (2012 or 2011) there was only one lab in existence that could test for all 12 subfractions: Cyrex Labs. Most of the other labs only test for the “alpha” subfraction. This is why there are so many false negatives. But the best way is just to go by how one reacts individually to it. For some reason, science doesn’t trump nature as some would have us believe…

Keep up the pursuit of excellence.

 

A Steve Martin Reference:  “Oh no! I’ve got happy feet!”

 

Good Gaiting To You! - Jim C

* Doctorauer’s article concludes with (and many other experts in the field agree ) the following:

“Grains are truly humanity’s double edged sword. They enabled us to leave behind our hunter gatherer lifestyle and created the foundation for the modern societies as we know them today. On the other hand, there is growing evidence that they are one of the major culprits for our health problems.

We must remember that evolutionarily speaking, we have been around for almost two million years, but we have only been eating grains for a few thousand. As such, our bodies have not had the time to adapt to this “new” food in our diet. Furthermore, modern farming, harvesting, and processing methods have stripped grains of their nutritional integrity, decreasing their digestibility, and making them highly toxic and inflammatory food to our bodies. With no doubt, today’s grains are proving to be one of the major underlying contributors to the development of degenerative diseases as we known them today.”

Byron Richards websites are http://www.wellnessresources.com/ and http://www.byronrichards.com/ .

Dr. Osborne’s video youtube lecture:    http://youtu.be/cv5RwxYW8yA

Are you "running" yourself into hormonal trouble ?→

Do those 40+ mile weeks do only good things to your body or could they be hurting you ? Is all this exercise catabolic ? Have you ever heard of hypothyroidism ? How about screwing up the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis ?   If you are a chronic exerciser you might want to read on.

Define catabolic: The metabolic breakdown of complex molecules into simpler ones, often resulting in a release of energy.

“I tried to rescue my Jessica from the clutches of the cardio contingent, but to no avail until a month ago when she called to tell me that a blood test had confirmed her doctor’s suspicion: she had hypothyroidism — her body no longer made enough thyroid hormone. Her metabolism slowed to a snail’s pace and the fat was accumulating. Now she had a culprit to blame, it wasn’t the cardio causing her problems, it was her body rebelling. When Jessica asked my advice, I told her to do two things: schedule a second test for two weeks later and until then, stop all the goddamn running.”

-From the article, Women Running into Trouble.  By John Keifer, on Elitefts.com

There are plenty of studies showing that chronic cardiovascular workouts may help to shut down the thyroid gland and its production of T3 thyroid, the body’s metabolic regulator. If you need those references, the 2 articles in this blog post, one by Keifer and one by Kresser, have plenty to just get you started.

Wait a minute Gait Guys, months ago you wrote about gluten in my food affecting the thyroid and now possibly longer cardio exercise as well ? Yup, there are suggestions that it can be the case in many people. But that doesn’t mean you need to freak out. You just need to be aware and be smart.  

First, lets review the gluten thing one more time for our new readers. (if you want to read our gluten ataxia article from moons ago, here it is). Several studies show a strong link between AITD (autoimmune thyroid disease (both Hashimoto’s and Graves’)) and gluten intolerance. The link is so well-established that researchers suggest all people with AITD be screened for gluten intolerance, and vice versa. And some experts will even tell you to not trust the intolerance screens, rather just stay away from gluten all together. 

AITD is a case of mistaken identity says Dr. Kresser in his article. He mentions that

“the molecular structure of gliadin, the protein portion of gluten, closely resembles that of the thyroid gland. When gliadin breaches the protective barrier of the intestinal gut, and enters the bloodstream, the immune system tags it for destruction. These antibodies to gliadin also cause the body to attack thyroid tissue. This means if you have AITD and you eat foods containing gluten, your immune system will attack your thyroid”

Ok. Back to exercise now. 

OK Gait Guys you have my attention now.  So, you are telling me that regularly repeated sustained exercise can also possibly affect me as well ?  The answer is yes.  There is some reasonable and growing research on this topic, so just educate yourself and make your choices and watch for signs.

Here is how it works.  T3 is the body’s metabolic regulator and it can crank up to generate heat and fuel production through catabolic processes generating energy.  It can also down-regulate (hypothyroidism) to slow the body’s metabolism and lower body core temperatures. This slow down can cause weight gain and lethargy even if the person is active and exercising (Do you ever go to the gym and see those folks who are always on the treadmill or ellipticals, never seeming to lose weight ? Sure they could be eating 3 square meals at Crispy Creme but it could also be their thyroid). When T3 is in balance the body can regulate temperature and energy production without problems. Thus it can be extrapolated that long standing steady exercise (floating around that 65-75% VO2max) will generate long periods of increased body core temperatures and energy expenditure raising the watchful eye of the thyroid. If it could talk, the thyroid would be saying, “Hey, what’s going on out there guys ? Why are we cranking up the heat and blowing all these fuel sources, EVERYDAY !? ” And since the thyroid is always on this alert, it is watching for signs it needs to REACT to preserve the organism and its energy stores. So when it see these long periods of increased temperature and energy expenditure it naturally senses that it must intervene to preserve them. Thus, it drops T3 output, temperature drops as well as metabolism. The brain and hormonal regulatory feedback systems decide then that the problem is solved, the organism can survive to live another day.  Unfortunately for the athlete this is not a productive thing when training for a marathon, so they override the signs and symptoms and get back at it tomorrow. Now, in this state, other fuel sources become vulnerable including muscle and bone mass. Plus cortisol ramps up and we all know how destructive long term heightened levels of cortisol can be. Not only are they catabolic in sustained high levels, they alter the adrenal hormonal loops with the brain, sacrificing hormones like DHEA and pregenalone to mention only a few (ie.Pregnenalone Steal Syndrome) and their associated feedback loops.

We see alot of serious athletes with this kind of stuff and sometimes we have to order hormone panels for these problems to see just how messed up the loops are and to determine where to start. Sometimes we just look at them and ask why they think more training trumps rest and recovery.

As a brilliant doctor in these fields said to me the other day while discussing Keifer’s article, “When the HPA axis is activated, the CRH response from the hypothalamus to pituitary begins the upregulation of the adrenal axis and directly inhibits TSH.  And the glucocorticoid response will also inhibit TSH.  If the body is under siege and goes into a catabolic state it should naturally have an inbuilt protective mechanism to slow the rate of breakdown! ” Thank goodness our body has this mechanism !

What did he say ?  In a nutshell, what he said is that the hormonal systems are all connected via feedforward and feedback loops to make sure the body is balanced and healthy.  When the body is working out too much and expending too much energy, heat and breakdown for long periods of time turn on these protective feedback loops in an attempt to protect the body.  The thyroid and adrenals are often at the mercy of the process, as well as your healthy hormone levels, muscle and bone mass (read more on this in Kresser’s short article) as well as energy. 

Staying healthy, it is a fine line.  Don’t forget that rest and recovery are critical for your performance, but more importantly for your health.  A  recovery day should be just that, recovery ! Not an easy 50 mile bike ride !  That is not deemed as recovery to the hormonal regulatory mechanisms of the body.  This stuff bodes us to share the statement……. “more is not always better”.  Don’t forget that your body needs to be fed rest and recovery just as much as good food and sleep. And, do not mistake this article to say that exercise is bad either, we all know the truth there.

There are some really great articles out there that talk about the similar physiologic effects of brief high intensity workouts when compared to sustained steady state exercise.  And, they might help save your body in the process if you are one of the vulnerable ones (and there are alot of vulnerable ones !).

Want to read John Keifer’s orginal article on this, go back up to the link provided at the top of the page. We tried to summarize a very difficult topic (even for some physicians) so don’t feel bad.

Shawn and Ivo

Ya, we are a little more than just Gait Guys. We try to take care of our athletes on every level.  This may  not have been gait related today, but it sure was running related. 

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