Can B Vitamins Fix Your Thyroid Problems?

Imagine one day the station wagon you rely on to get you the office, ferry around the kids, and haul the weekly groceries home suddenly breaks down. You take it to the garage and the mechanic there tells you he doesn't know exactly what's wrong, but he has a quick-fix solution: push the car everywhere you want to go! You can still do all the things you relied on your station wagon for, only now you have to help it along a little. Time to get a new mechanic, right? Yet when you want to treat your thyroid problem, your physician will often recommend you take a course of thyroxin, or other thyroid hormones. This is the job of your thyroid gland! It produces the hormones triiodothyronine (T3), and thyroxin (T4), which control weight, heart rate, skin conditions, and energy levels of body, plus much more. By controlling your thyroid problem with artificial T hormones you're not treating the problem but doing all the work instead, lugging around your thyroid gland like a broken-down Ford Woody.

But is there any alternative? We can't trade in our thyroid gland for a new model, but the treatment of thyroid disease and thyroid problems is possible with the help of B vitamins. The B vitamins are a group of similar, but not identical, nutrients that work together and are vital to every function of your body and especially in providing immune support. Why is providing immune system support relevant to the treatment of thyroid problems? Firstly, we need to look at thyroid disease and related problem in more detail.

Under- and Over-active Thyroid Problems: Why?

Thyroid disease can arise from either an under-active thyroid (hypothyroidism) or an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism) gland. With hypothyroidism, the thyroid gland makes less thyroid hormone than the body needs. Symptoms of this thyroid problem include:

• Weight gain, constipation, depression;
• Fatigue, weakness, nervousness, insomnia;
• Immune system problems and poor memory.

That's right, hypothyroidism patients often have weak immune systems and are more prone to infections. What's more, the cause of hypothyroidism is often down to a weak immune system. Suddenly, B vitamins used for the treatment of thyroid disease is looking interesting.

The symptoms of hyperthyroidism, and over production of thyroid hormones, include:

• Accelerated heart rate, weight loss, diarrhea
• Muscle weakness, sensitivity to heat, and sleeping difficulties
• Irregular menstrual cycles in women, coarse skin, and hair loss

The cause of hyperthyroidism is linked to Graves' disease, an autoimmune disorder, in which antibodies responsible for protecting the body mistakenly attack the thyroid gland, causing over-stimulation and too many T hormones in the body.

B Vitamins and Thyroid Disease

The first step in fixing a problem is knowing the problem. Thyroid disease, be it an over-active or under-active thyroid gland, is closely linked with a healthy immune system. As B vitamins are crucial in the healthy functioning of the immune system, they are also crucial in the healthy function of the thyroid gland. What's more, when thyroid problems occur, extra supplements of B vitamins can be used to treat the disease, and get your thyroid gland firing on all cylinders once again.

How do B vitamins treat thyroid disease and provide immune support? That is a topic for another article, available on our blog.