Thyroid for Dummies (32 page)

ߜ
Vitamin B1:
Used for digestion and nervous system function, comes from wholegrain cereals, peas, and nuts.

ߜ
Vitamin B2:
Helps to release energy and maintain the skin and eyes, comes from liver, milk, eggs, and green leafy vegetables.

ߜ
Vitamin B3:
Used for maintenance of the skin and nerves, comes from chicken, salmon, and peanuts.

ߜ
Vitamin B6:
Needed to make red blood cells and to release energy from the energy sources. It comes from meat, fish, poultry, and peanuts.

ߜ
Vitamin B12:
Essential for the nervous system and red blood cells. It’s found in all foods coming from animals, including meat and milk; a person who eats nothing but vegetables doesn’t get this vitamin.

ߜ
Vitamin C:
Helps with healing and prevention of infections and is found in citrus fruits, strawberries, and broccoli.

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ߜ
Vitamin D:
Required for the absorption of dietary calcium in the gut and comes in milk, fish, and the yolk of eggs. Fortunately, this is a vitamin that can be made by the body when the skin is exposed to sunlight.

ߜ
Vitamin E:
Functions include the prevention of cholesterol build-up and production of red blood cells and muscles. You get it in vegetable oils, peas, and nuts.

ߜ
Vitamin K:
Essential for clotting of the blood so that you don’t continue to bleed when you are cut. It’s found in broccoli and green leafy vegetables.

ߜ
Folic acid:
Needed to produce red blood cells and protein. It’s found in green leafy vegetables, oranges, and peanuts.

Maintaining your minerals

The mineral content of your food depends on the mineral content of the soil in which plants are grown and animals are reared. Minerals are divided into
major minerals
, which are present in relatively large amounts in the body, and
trace elements
that are essential but present in only tiny amounts.

The major minerals consist of the following:

ߜ
Calcium:
For strong bones and teeth, for blood clotting, and for muscle function, found in dairy products, almonds, broccoli, and other green leafy vegetables.

ߜ
Magnesium:
For nerve and muscle function, found in milk, seafood, bananas, and green leafy vegetables.

ߜ
Phosphorus:
For the bones and teeth, comes from milk, hamburger, and cheese.

The trace elements include:

ߜ
Chromium:
Needed for production of glucose tolerance factor, which interacts with insulin hormone to control the way cells take up glucose.

Found in organ meats, mushrooms, and broccoli.

ߜ
Iodine:
The key mineral for the production of thyroid hormones, which is found in seafood and iodised salt and bread.

ߜ
Iron:
For red blood cell haemoglobin, comes from meat, poultry, fish, and raisins.

ߜ
Selenium:
Also used in enzymes that affect thyroid hormones, found in seafood and wholegrains.

ߜ
Zinc:
Needed in the production of insulin and found in red meat, shellfish, and eggs.

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Now you know what these nutrients are, what they do, and where they can be found. No discussion of proper nutrition could leave out a discussion of fats, so keep reading.

Choosing your fats wisely

Nutritionists advise limiting your fat intake to no more than 30 per cent of your total daily calories, while limiting your intake of saturated fat to no more than one third of that amount, that is, no more than 10 per cent of your total daily calories.

You can keep your fats down by looking for low-fat foods, which are plentiful in the supermarkets these days. Just remember not to substitute foods rich in carbohydrates. Food labels can tell you what you need to know about the energy sources in the food as well as the amounts of the vitamins and minerals.

When checking labels for fat content, a good general rule is that, per 100

grams food (or per serving if a serving is less than 100 grams): ߜ
3 grams
of total fat or less is
a little
fat ߜ
20 grams
of total fat or more is
a lot
of fat While for saturated fats:

ߜ
1 gram
of saturated fat or less is
a little
saturated fat ߜ
5 grams
of saturated fat or more is
a lot
of saturated fat Checking out your cholesterol

The fat that most people think about is
cholesterol
. Ask your doctor to check your cholesterol level if you don’t know it yet. The average Total Cholesterol level for adults aged 35–64 years is currently 6.1 mmol/L (millimoles per litre), significantly higher than the target healthy Total Cholesterol level of less than 5 mmol/L (millimoles per litre). However, you have two types of cholesterol in your circulation:

ߜ Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol – often referred to as ‘bad cholesterol’ as high levels are linked with hardening and furring up of artery walls, high blood pressure, and coronary heart disease.

ߜ High-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol – usually referred to as

‘good cholesterol’ as it helps to protect against heart disease by transporting LDL-cholesterol away from the arteries and back to the liver for processing.

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Although knowing your total cholesterol level is useful, the relative level of LDL-cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol is more important. This ratio is closely linked with your future risk of heart attack and stroke, which together account for as many as 245,000 deaths each year in the United Kingdom.

An ideal LDL-cholesterol level is less than 3 mmol/L (millimoles per litre), while an ideal HDL-cholesterol level is greater than 1 mmol/L (millimoles per litre).

You can do a simple calculation to see whether your level of cholesterol is potentially harmful. Divide your total cholesterol level (for example, 6) with your HDL cholesterol level (for example 1) and if the result is less than 4.5, you have a low risk of having a heart attack. The higher that number, the greater you’re at risk. Obviously, other factors such as your blood pressure, age, gender, and glucose levels also play a role, but this calculation is useful to see whether or not you need to worry about your cholesterol levels.

You can do something to raise your HDL or ‘good’ cholesterol. The best way is exercise. The more you do (within reason), the higher your HDL and the lower your risk of having a heart attack.

High cholesterol is also a well-known effect of hypothyroidism. Moreover, high cholesterol is not only associated with coronary heart disease and heart attacks, but with peripheral vascular disease (leading to blocked blood flow to the legs) and cerebral artery disease, which can lead to strokes.

The number of people with high cholesterol is far greater than the number of people who have hypothyroidism. Most abnormalities in cholesterol are due to excessive fat in the diet and lack of exercise.

However, there are undoubtedly many cases of undiagnosed hypothyroidism that do result in high cholesterol. Studies show that more than 10 per cent of people with high cholesterol (levels over 5 mmol/L) have hypothyroidism.

Most people with high cholesterol are not tested for hypothyroidism, and most people don’t know that hypothyroidism and high cholesterol have a connection in the first place.

When someone with high cholesterol is diagnosed with hypothyroidism, the treatment is, of course, thyroid hormone. The results are often pretty dramatic, however, with cholesterol levels falling as much as 30–40 per cent when someone with hypothyroidism takes thyroid hormone. However, this is not always true for people with subclinical hypothyroidism, where they have an elevated TSH level but a normal free T4.

The explanation for the increase in cholesterol in hypothyroidism is that the breakdown of cholesterol declines with hypothyroidism just as the metabolism of everything else in the body declines. However, the production of cholesterol remains the same, leading to a rise in the blood cholesterol.

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If your cholesterol is elevated above 5 mmol/L (millimoles per litre), ask your doctor to check your thyroid function.

Moderating your sugar intake

Most people are aware that excess sugar is bad for your health. The many reasons for this include:

ߜ Sugary foods promote tooth decay.

ߜ Sugary foods often contain few essential nutrients and replace those foods that have these nutrients.

ߜ Sugary foods are the source of many calories. They are often eaten in an effort to avoid fatty foods, but you still end up with too many calories.

ߜ Excess sugar increases insulin secretion, which lowers blood glucose levels. Sugar swings can cause tiredness and lethargy.

ߜ A high-sugar diet increases the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes You can avoid these problems if you keep to small, infrequent portions of sugary foods such as pies, cakes, candies, and biscuits. Substituting fruit for these sugary foods reduces sugar intake, provides a certain amount of sweet-ness for your sweet tooth, and provides other important nutrients at the same time.

The biggest offender when it comes to lots of sugar with no nutrition is sugar-based fizzy drinks. Unless you choose diet soda, prepared with non-caloric sweeteners, the typical bottle of soda gives you a huge amount of sugar and nothing else. Even the flavoured fruit sodas are loaded with sugar. Do yourself a favour and switch to water with lemon or lime or the diet sodas that contain no sugar. Always read the label first before selecting a fizzy drink.

Sifting the salt

Guidelines regarding salt intake are designed to help protect you from developing high blood pressure. The recommended amount of salt is no more than a teaspoon, or 6 grams, daily. Most people eat twice as much as that, or more.

One problem is that food manufacturers typically add a lot of salt to their foods. To help avoid this, check labels and choose low-salt foods. A good rule of thumb is that, per 100 grams food (or per serving if a serving is less than 100 grams):

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ߜ
0.5 grams
sodium or more is
a lot
of sodium ߜ
0.1 grams
sodium or less is
a little
sodium When you read food labels, multiply those giving salt content as ‘sodium’ by 2.5 to give table salt content. For example, a serving of soup containing 0.4

grams sodium contains 1 gram salt (sodium chloride).

Another problem is that people are too used to picking up the salt shaker and heavily spraying their food with salt. The result is food that tastes like salt and not much else. Try your food without salt for a change. At first it tastes bland, but you soon begin to notice the subtle flavours of the food coming through. Using black pepper, herbs, and lime juice all help give food more flavour while waiting for your taste buds to readjust.

Most recipes, especially in older cookbooks, recommend more salt than is necessary for proper preparation of the food. Try reducing the salt in the recipe by half – or leaving it out altogether (except perhaps for bread). In most cases, the food cooks just as well and the taste is even superior. If you don’t tell your family about reducing the salt, chances are they’ll never notice.

In many countries, iodised salt is the major source of iodine (refer to Chapter 12). That teaspoon of salt a day contains twice as much iodine as you need each day, so you can reduce your salt intake to a half teaspoon and still know you’re getting enough salt. If you eat one piece of bread, it contains just about your daily requirement of iodine. You do not need to eat excess salt to assure yourself of getting enough iodine.

Drinking alcohol in moderation

If you consume more than one or two drinks of alcohol a day or more than ten in a week, do your best to reduce those amounts. Like cigarettes, alcohol damages your body in many ways (although small amounts are beneficial).

Excess alcohol consumption

ߜ Raises your blood pressure

ߜ Increases your risk of a heart attack

ߜ Damages your liver

ߜ Promotes certain cancers

Drinking to excess provides no nutrition and often causes you to eat less of the foods you need for good nutrition. Severe alcoholism results in: 21_031727 ch15.qxp 9/6/06 10:47 PM Page 186

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ߜ Damage to the nervous system

ߜ Vitamin deficiency diseases

ߜ Anaemia

ߜ Skin damage

Alcohol also destroys families. When one or more members of a family are alcoholic, the incidence of divorce, accidents, suicide, loss of employment, and disease within that family is much greater than in families that do not have an alcoholic member. Alcoholism can also lead to impotency, making sexual relations impossible.

Keep in mind that alcohol in moderation can raise the level of HDL or ‘good’

cholesterol in your body. Alcohol is also a pleasant part of a meal and a key element in certain social scenes. Clearly, alcohol is not going to go away, but do use it wisely.

Going Organic

To protect yourself from chemicals sprayed on foods as they are grown and chemicals present in the soil that fruits and vegetables are grown in, wash all fruits and vegetables before eating them, and peel root vegetables, such as carrots. Obviously, this action doesn’t eliminate chemicals inside the food, and some people choose to pay a little extra and buy organic crops. Organically grown produce is cultivated using traditional methods and many people find they taste better as they are not grown for uniformity of size, shape, and colour above flavour. They are often more nutritious, too, with a higher content of vitamins and minerals, and less water.