A question Dr. Martin often gets asked is why we see so many thyroid problems today. Dr. Martin talks about thyroid all the time and he thinks it's very much misdiagnosed.
Something that’s very important for your thyroid function is vitamin A and it’s not found in the plant kingdom. Vitamin A is a fat soluble vitamin only found in the animal kingdom.
Join Dr. Martin as he teaches on the many benefits of vitamin A on your thyroid.
TRANSCRIPT OF TODAY'S EPISODE
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Dr. Martin: Well, good afternoon everyone. Welcome to another live. Hope you're having a great day, and we're looking forward to our little session together here today. Looking forward to this whole week. Okay, guys. Now I got to answer a question that's asked of me a lot, and that is, Hey Doc, how come we see so much thyroid problems today? Okay, one of the things is it's because I'm very acutely aware of the thyroid, so I talk about it all the time. But I think the other thing is, is a lot of times that it's, it's very much misdiagnosed. And again, one of the main reasons is that it's misdiagnosed, is that we have a tendency in medicine to rely on blood work. And any time I ever had a chance to discuss this with my patients or even doctors or whatever, say, well, you better get all those symptoms, do a case history.
Because if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's probably a duck. And so I used to see that a lot in practice. But let me give you the question again. Why do we see so much thyroid? Probably, well, a lot has to do with iodine. And I think if you look on our website, you can actually see a teaching that we do on the thyroid and we discuss iodine, we discuss selenium. Those two need to be there for sure. And there's a huge problem because in the soil today, there's very little iodine, and that's one of the reasons that they iodized the salt. Actually put iodine in the salt because it was a major problem in the 1920s, 1930s. It's still a problem today, but I want to go even deeper than that. I want to go deeper because I think I put my finger on the pulse of the thyroid and why we see so much trouble today.
One of the reasons that we see so much trouble with the thyroid is remember now, remember the teaching, the thyroid is a puppet with a lot of strings attached. And what happens hormonally really has a major effect on the thyroid. So let me unpack this a little bit for you. When you're stressed, stress again is normal. You're made for it. It's not abnormal at all to have stress in your life. You have organs dedicated to it, too little glands on top of your kidneys called add renal, and they're dedicated to stress. So how could stress be bad? Well, stress isn't bad until it lasts and lasts and lasts. Cortisol, okay? The stress hormone, the long lasting stress hormone really messes up the thyroid. How does it do that? One, it robs cortisol, robs progesterone even in men, but doesn't affect men very much. Okay? It robs progesterone. So what happens, ladies? This is very specific to you. What happens when cortisol long lasting stress, it robs progesterone and it creates an imbalance. What it does is that it elevates estrogen. And remember, for a woman to feel good, a woman needs balance, estrogen, progesterone equal.
And a lot of people misunderstand when I say, well, you're estrogen dominant. Then they go, well, doc, how can I be estrogen dominant when I'm in menopause? Well, it's always in relationship to progesterone. And if you have high levels of stress, your cortisol is up, but your progesterone goes down, it robs progesterone creating estrogen dominance. And when one has estrogen dominance, the thyroid slows to a crawl. And then you get thousands and thousands and thousands of women who are frustrated for one of the main reasons is, yeah, they don't feel good. But the big reason is because they're gaining weight and they can't figure it out. They're eating better than their husbands. They're working out and yet they're gaining weight, or they're not losing weight. They think they should. Well, like I said, hormones, and we often call them horror hormones. The thyroid needs balance of estrogen and progesterone.
Okay? So that's number one. That is one of the reasons. I mean, besides iodine, besides the lack of selenium, it's a problem. So you get high stress over a period of time and more in women than men, it can affect their thyroid. It slows it to a crawl because of estrogen dominance. Okay? So that's number one. The other reason is, and you know I'm huge on food, food and hormones. And the problem is, and this had been going on for a lot of years, I'd say probably over 30, is that women bought the lie of low fat diets more than men. Not that men don't get duped, they certainly do, but usually men will like their hamburgers, they'll like their steak or whatever. Women bought the lie of fat free or low fat because they were told Fat makes you fat. And they bought that lie.
It was never true, by the way, never, never, never true. It was never good science. It was all based on the food industry trying to sell fat free and cholesterol free foods. But what happened, okay, and I watched this happen, is that there was sort of like, I hate to rule the word pandemic around, but there was certainly a run on fat free. And women often got duped into being not necessarily a vegetarian or even a vegan, but they liked their vegetables more than they liked steak, for example. And again, I'm generalizing, so please don't come after me afterwards and said, well, I love steak. I hope you do. I'm just talking about that meat consumption is down 30, 40%. Now, we've talked about this so many times, but specifically for the thyroid, let me remind you, very, very important for your thyroid function is a vitamin.
We call vitamin A. Okay? Vitamin A. Now, vitamin A is not found in the plant kingdom. It's a fat soluble vitamin found only in the animal kingdom. Now, you can get precursors to vitamin A, which are carotenoids, okay? Betaine, for example. And when mommy used to tell you to eat your carrots for your eyes, well, mommy wasn't exactly right, okay? It's not that carrots are bad, don't misquote me. I like carrots. But it's not vitamin A. It's a precursor, but it's not vitamin A. Now, listen to what I'm going to say. For your thyroid to work properly, you need vitamin A. Now, you don't hear me telling you to take a supplement that I ever give supplements for vitamin A. Yes, I did. And if you know a vegetarian or a vegan, and they're not on vitamin A as a supplement, they're making a big mistake.
They should be on vitamin D. They should be on vitamin A, they should be on a heme iron cause they just don't get that. But back to the thyroid, the thyroid works at an optimal level. When you eat vitamin A, vitamin A is found in eggs, meat, cheese. And when I say cheese and dairy and butter, butter, I love butter. Vitamin A is found in butter, but it's not found in the plant kingdom. Why do we see so much trouble with the thyroid today? Why do we see so much sluggish thyroid? Yes, cortisol robbing progesterone causing estrogen dominance. Number two, because of the lack of vitamin A and selenium, by the way, where do you get selenium, eggs, meat and cheese?
I'm like a broken record. Is that all Dr. Martin, you can talk about? Well, it's not all I can talk about, but it's certainly a big thing because today we see an enormous amount of thyroid problems. And when you send your blood work into me, by the way, I'm happy to look at it. Okay? You're not bothering me. I like it. Okay? It's something that's sort of a holdover from my practice days. I was big on blood work, wasn't everything, but it was something, it was really important to me. I liked looking up blood work, but especially when I had the symptoms, I used to be able to detect almost without fail, viral, just looking, eyeballing a patient. I'd look at their hair, I'd look at their eyebrows, I'd look at the complexion of their skin, very visual, and I could, well, you're estrogen dominant, and I guarantee you, your thyroid is not up to snuff.
Oh, doc, my doctor took my test and they're normal. Well, I hate to break it to you, but no, not normal. You're sluggish. It doesn't mean its disease, but it's slugging. Now, I used to have a little formula that I used in the office. I still use it today. I'm very suspicious when I don't see a patient and I look at blood work, I like looking at Ts H. Look, if you want to send me a full panel of thyroid, t4, t3, whatever, I look, it's not that I don't take that into account, but I sort of had a little sweet spot just with all my experience of looking at blood work plus symptoms, blood work symptoms, weight gain or slow weight loss, thinning eyebrows, thinning hair, hair, growing in the wrong place on that chinny, chin, chin, if you know what I mean. That's thyroid.
And again, cortisol. This is why guys, listen to me. This is why women will do so well on the reset. Okay? Now, if their primary goal is weight loss, I still recommend the reset for weight loss better than any other program out there, including intermittent fasting. I know people like intermittent fasting, so do I, but you got to eat, and I'm big, big, big, big, big on nutrition. I'm big on vitamin A. You're not getting vitamin A in seeds or K nuts or carrots. You're getting the precursor, but you're not getting vitamin A. It's a fat soluble vitamin found in the animal kingdom. So when someone gets on eggs, meat, and cheese, their thyroid improves. They're getting selenium, they're getting iodine, they're getting vitamin A. Now we know vitamin A does a lot of things. Okay? Very important for skin. I see commercials all the time for retinol.
Oh, retinol is good for your skin. Yeah, it sure is. That's vitamin A. Retinol is vitamin A. Okay? And yeah, I like vitamin A for skin, but again, I'm big on eating vitamin A. It's important to eat it, you know? I'm not saying you could never supplement with it. Yes, you could, but I'm big on vitamin A I I like vitamin A. You guys know this for the immune system and how important it is. We talked about it many, many a times. The invisible mask, vitamin A is better than any mask out there because it's an invisible mask that covers every entryway for a virus or a bacteria to get into your body, vitamin A. And why do we see so much problems in the world today? Not only thyroid, but poor immunity in children. They don't have an immune system anymore. Why? Well, they're eating crappy foods.
Not only is sugar destroys your immune system, but you're not getting any nutrients. Oh, Dr. Martin, they eat fortified cereal, garbage, and I mean it garbage. There's nothing in it. There's no bioavailable vitamins in there, and there's no vitamin A that you can get from there. No wonder we see so much trouble today. You know, I've been looking at studies for vitamin A in cancer. It is so important for your immune system. We all know what it does for your eyes, okay? Like I said, mommy, she got carrots wrong, okay? And I love mummies, okay? They got carrots wrong, but that doesn't mean carrots are no good for you, okay? But vitamin A is essential for your thyroid. Now, let me give you another reason, okay? And I'm going to close with this. Here's another reason we see so much thyroid problems. High cortisol robs your progesterone, okay?
Causes estrogen dominance, messes up the thyroid. The thyroid slows to a crawl. Two, the lack of nutrients, not only selenium and iodine, but vitamin A. Vitamin A is essential for the thyroid to work properly. And that is why I'm so big on the reset, even for thyroid function. And here's another one. Liver T4 gets converted to T3 in the liver. Okay? Why is that important, doc? Well, when you have half the population or more that have some form of fatty liver, you know what happens? The conversion of T4 to t3, okay? You need T3 for your thyroid to work properly. And when you don't have enough t3, your thyroid slows down. What affects that? The fat in the liver. Fructose, high fructose corn syrup is another reason why we see so much problems with the thyroid. We love that high fructose corn syrup. Well, I don't love it.
And you don't love it, but the world loves it. The food industry loves it. Okay, so what do we do? What do we do? Well start with the reset. Do a 30 day program to help balance your hormones, empty your liver, lower insulin, okay? Lower insulin nutrition. It's so important. Every cell in your body needs the right fuel. And this is why I talk about eggs, meat, and cheese all the time, guys, if you're waiting for me to change, my mind ain't going to happen. I listened to a radio show the other day. The guy said, I'm right and they're wrong. I kind of like that. I'm right and they're wrong. No, in all due respect, okay? And I mean that in all due respect with people. I love people. And if they don't agree with me, I still love them. I do, but I'm right and they're wrong. Okay, guys, we got a great week coming up. Talk to you soon.
Announcer: You've reached the end of another Doctor Is In Podcast, with your hosts, Doctor Martin Junior and Senior. Be sure to catch our next episode and thanks for listening!