Brittany Henderson, MD, ECNU is board-certified in internal medicine and endocrinology, with advanced training in thyroid disorders, including Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Graves Disease, thyroid nodules, and thyroid cancer. Originally from Cleveland, Ohio, she graduated in the top 10% of at her class at Northeastern Ohio Medical University, where she received the honor of Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA). She completed her endocrinology fellowship training under a National Institutes of Health (NIH) research-training grant at Duke University Medical Center. She then served as Medical Director for the Thyroid and Endocrine Tumor Board at Duke University Medical Center and as Clinical Director for the Thyroid and Endocrine Neoplasia Clinic at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.

Topics discussed in this episode include:

• How to interpret my thyroid results?
• Why did I get this? Is it something I did?
• Thyroid controls nearly all body systems: heart, weight, brain, bowel.
• Testing and diagnosis: beyond blood-work
• TSH is the most common check
• TSH is like the reading of your electric meter: it tells you big picture for a month, not daily — it is not a fluid system, it changes by the hour
• TSH is not the cure all for reading thyroid health
• Full thyroid panel: Free T4 and Free T3 is important — highest in morning, lowest around 2p or 3p in the afternoon
• There is no one size fits all to Hashimoto’s — there are different types
• Blood tests: preparing for lab tests
• ‘Normal’ TSH but a patient does not feel normal
• Normal TSH range is controversial — .5 to 3 TSH is normal — if on thyroid replacement target 1.5
• Suppressed TSH
• Dangers of suppressed TSH for thyroid cancer replacement or those on too much on thyroid replacement — heart failure, osteoporosis
• T3 symptoms of TSH is kept too low for too long
• The T4 — T3 relationship
• T4 is money in savings account — but you cant use it now — T3 is money in your pocket and available now
• Preferred thyroid replacement — but, issues with synthetic and desiccated
• The goal — T4 and T3 as stable as possible throughout the day — in light of absorption and interfering food
• Compounded medications
• A doctor must listen to the patient
• Generic levothyroxine and fillers — who is the manufacturer
• What is better, Nature or Armour?
• Why do some people do better on various thyroid replacement formulations?
• Gut biome
• The environment and thyroid disease
• Defining leaky gut
• Avoid foods that gut inflammation thereby worsening auto-immune disease
• Three food foes: processed foods, sugar, and iodine disruptors
• Is adrenal fatigue real?
• Supplements: vitamins and Hashimoto’s
• Nutrients needed to produce thyroid hormone, such as optimizing iron and selenium
• Anti-inflammatory vitamins and Vitamin A and Vitamin D
• Anti-oxidant vitamins — Vitamin B1, Vitamin C, and Glutathione
• What time of day to take to thyroid replacement medication
• What happens if you miss a day of thyroid replacement hormone?
• What does an endocrinologist feel about a patient seeing a Naturopath or an integrative medicine specialist?

NOTES

57: The Gut⎥Antibiotics Danger, Fixing Inflammation, and Thyroid Health, with Dr. Lisa Sardinia

42: Flame Retardants Connected to Thyroid Cancer, with Dr. Julie Ann Sosa from Duke University

Exposure to flame retardant chemicals and occurrence and severity of papillary thyroid cancer: A case-control study. 

LGR5 is associated with tumor aggressiveness in papillary thyroid cancer.

Hedgehog signaling in medullary thyroid cancer: a novel signaling pathway. 

Dr. Brittany Henderson

Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter: @DrHendersonMD, @charlestonthyroid, @hashimotosbook

Websites: www.charlestonthyroid.com and www.drhendersonmd.com