What Your Thyroid Reveals About Inflammation, Immunity, And Cancer Prevention

What if one small gland quietly shaped your energy, your immune surveillance, and your long-term cancer risk? 

In today's episode we are joined again by guest expert Lauren Papanos to look at the thyroid’s role in metabolism, detox, and cellular defense & why eating for organ support is important in an anti-cancer nutrition plan.

We break down what to test beyond TSH, how to interpret early clues, where inflammation hides in plain sight, and we'll connect the dots between autoimmunity, oxidative stress, and cancer risk.

Here's some of what we're covering:

• thyroid as master speed regulator across systems
• why autoimmunity starts silent and how to screen
• why a full thyroid panel plus antibodies and oxidative markers is important to monitor
• the role of iodine in thyroid health & cancer prevention
• immune drains from viruses, gut issues, toxins, training
• antioxidants that protect thyroid and lower risk
• postpartum shifts, perimenopause, and hormone monitoring

You will also learn which foods can help move the needle...like selenium from Brazil nuts, sulfur-rich veggies for glutathione, vitamin E from olive oil, vitamin A from organ meats & more.

By aligning smarter screening with a stepwise plan—lower inflammation, rebuild resilience, and only then fine-tune iodine—you reinforce the same systems that keep cancer risk low and daily energy steady.

If this helped you see your thyroid in a new light, tap follow, share with a friend who needs it, and leave a quick review so more people can find the show.

More about today's guest & how to connect with her:

Lauren Papanos, MS, RD, CSSD is a registered dietitian, board certified sports nutritionist, and functional medicine expert providing solutions for thyroid, hormones and autoimmunity in active women and athletes. She holds advanced certifications in functional endocrinology, environmental toxins, advanced blood chemistry and is internationally licensed as a Micro-immunotherapy practitioner. She's been featured in Forbes, Shape, Insider, and national TV. Lauren runs her private practice, Functional Fueling Nutrition, and hosts the Strength in Hormones Podcast.

👉 Website: www.functionalfueling.com

👉 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/functional.fueling/ 

👉 Podcast: https://functionalfueling.com/category/podcast/ 

PLUS resources shared on today's episode:

👉 Lauren's Thyroid Inflammation Lab Decoder Guide  

👉 Lauren's Functional Thyroid Foundations 

👉 Episode 9 Interview with Lauren: Hidden Link Between Thyroid health & Breast Cancer

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Transcript

Welcome And Topic Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Ground and Root Podcast. I'm your host and holistic cancer dietitian, Deonta Trez. And I'm very excited to welcome back my friend and fellow registered dietitian Lauren Papanos. She is a board-certified sports nutritionist and functional medicine expert who specializes in thyroid hormones and autoimmunity. And the last time she was on, I went much more in depth into all of her background. So I will link to that episode below in the show notes if you want to listen to that. She does have a private practice, functional fueling nutrition, and she hosts the Strength in Hormones podcast, or you can find her on Instagram or her website. I'll make sure all the links are below. The last time Lauren was here, we explored the connection between the thyroid for breast health and risk for breast cancer. And today we're going to take a closer look at the link with thyroid cancer in particular and what we can do to not only help to decrease our risks, but improve our thyroid health in general, because our thyroid is so important for so many different functions in the body. So even though we're using the lens of cancer prevention, I think by improving thyroid health, you're going to improve a lot of different systems in your body, which is of good side benefit. So, Lauren, welcome. I'm so happy to have you back with us today. I'm happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me back. You're welcome. I'm happy to have you can come more if you want. We'll find other topics. We'll just start a series. Okay. All right. Let's start with just some statistics because even though thyroid cancer thankfully is not a very super popular cancer, like it's not a very common cancer. I do the thyroid conditions, like thyroid disease, is more common. So I think we need to speak a little bit to just prevalence. And then also who's most at risk. Do you want to start with that?

Who’s At Risk And Why Younger Women

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yeah, absolutely. And you can definitely fill in more info on this. But as many are like, as you just alluded to, women are at an increasing risk of both thyroid disease, but also thyroid cancer. They're not necessarily having thyroid disease increases, is a surefire way that you're going to develop thyroid cancer, right? But it does increase your risk a couple fold if you do have a thyroid disease such as Hashimoto's thyroiditis, Graves disease, hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, we see an increased risk, which we're going to talk about today. But with thyroid cancer in particular, we do see development in younger populations. And typically, in my experience, I see most commonly women that are in their like 30, 30 years old age bracket.

Thyroid’s Role In Speed, Detox, Immunity

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Yeah, which is for me, what is honestly, that was a big driver for me even starting this podcast, is just because in general, cancer rates are climbing in these younger groups of people. And cancer is a disease of aging, you know. So for me, my thought process is people are aging way too fast. Why is that happening? And what can we do about it? And certain parts of our body are gonna be even more susceptible or fragile, if you will, to the things that cause aging. And I imagine the thyroid is one of those organs, right? It's gonna be really sensitive to toxins and different things that are going to increase aging or so. Last time we met, we did a deep dive into all the things a thyroid does. So I don't think we need to do that again. Again, I'll link to the episode if you want to listen to that again. But in a nutshell, just in case people, this is their first time hearing anything around this, let's just review like the few main things, like a few things that stayed with me from our conversation, particularly as it pertains to cancer, is thinking about the fact that the thyroid controls all speed and growth processes in the body, which is gonna be a really important thing when we're thinking about cancer and cell, right, cell regulation, cell apoptosis, et cetera. But then also its role that it plays in so many different systems. And many of those systems are what help us stay cancer free, right? Like our immune function or mitochondrial health, detoxification, et cetera. Is there any other kind of overarching things that you want to just mention to just to make sure that we're all on the same page around like what the thyroid's doing and why we need to take it seriously?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Yeah, you hit the nail right on the head. The thyroid's main role is like master regulation of speed in the body. So any process that is governed by speed, whether it is energy production, converting the food that we eat over into energy, the speed of how quickly food moves through our digestive tract, the speed of hair growth, nail growth, the speed of conception, the ability to be fertile, reproduction. These are all processes that are governed by the thyroid. And, you know, there's only so much capacity that our body has to be able to work around the thyroid because it plays such an important role. We have thyroid receptors all over our body. But I think one that is really critical to this conversation as well is the thyroid's role in detoxification. And many people, you know, forget that in order to detoxify, your body needs energy to be able to do so, right? Or even just as you mentioned, the immune system. In order for our immune system to function optimally and to be surveilling things as it should, we need optimal thyroid hormone levels. And that's one piece. When we talk about thyroid cancer, it's not always just the thyroid hormone conversation that is a big, a big area of contention. It's also the thyroid oxidative stress piece because you can have a autoimmune thyroid disorder such as Hashimoto's and Graves' disease, where they're are they are in the early stages to where the immune system is in overdrive and is attacking these thyroid cells that it shouldn't be in the thyroid tissue. But there's not actually hormone destruction that we're seeing yet. So, yes, the hormones, the thyroid hormones play an important role in the speed process. But outside of that, when we think about thyroid autoimmunity in the early stages, we also have to think about how things are being regulated by the immune system and how that then is impacting other processes.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Okay, that's really good to know. Maybe that actually would be a good segue for us to even talk about how would you even first know that something might be amiss or wrong with the thyroid? And as we talked about last time too, these aren't even necessarily markers that are always getting checked on just annual lab work, let's say. So how would you what would what should we be searching for? Like what should we be looking for to give us a clue that something is starting to go amiss in our with our thyroid? Yeah.

Early Clues And What To Test

Nodules, Goiter, And Iodine Basics

SPEAKER_01 6:53

So the most common way to develop thyroid dysfunction is through autoimmune processes. The hard part with autoimmunity is that it's very silent, right? A lot of times, especially with the thyroid, we don't know that there's any thyroid autoimmunity happening until it gets to the point where it's in the later stages where now you are seeing the hormone imbalances occur. So in the early stages of conditions like Hashimoto's and graves, many people are asymptomatic. So that's where prevention and having the right baseline testing, where we're always screening for are there thyroid antibodies at play and is there dysfunction happening in the immune system is really key. So there's things that we know that can prevent autoimmunity. Obviously, one is genetics, but unfortunately we can't really change our genetics. But if you have a family risk factor of any autoimmune disease, that would clue me in that there's probably a reason to continue to screen for all autoimmunity. And you could just start with something as simple as like an ANA test, anti-nuclear antibodies, which is a nonspecific test that tells us is there autoimmunity at play. It's not perfect. Sometimes there's false positives, sometimes there's false negatives, but it could be a great starting place that could then lead you down the other rabbit holes of where to look further. But also you could even just test a full thyroid panel that includes thyroid antibodies, you know, maybe it's once a year, whenever you do your annual labs, so that you can gain some insight into making sure that nothing has become dysregulated. So that would really be the early stages where a lot of times people are asymptomatic. Once we start to get into the later stages of the thyroid autoimmunity, where the thyroid cells are starting to be destroyed. And so we're starting to see these imbalances in thyroid hormone levels, then that's when you can start to notice more symptoms physically. That's where typically individuals will notice things like nodules. Because with nodules, what's happening is that because there's low levels of free thyroid hormones, like free T3, your brain is then sending more TSH downstream to your thyroid to then stimulate more T4 and then ultimately T3 production. And so it's that increased like stimulation. Almost think of it as if you were overworking a muscle. What would happen, right? That muscle would hypertrophy and it would grow. Same thing with the thyroid nodules is that if we continue to stimulate more of that TSH, those nodules continue to grow. And then that becomes apparent in the neck where people notice nodules. I don't know if any of your listeners watch watched the show that is with Tarek Musala, I want to say his name is, but it's a home design show, and flipper flop was the name of it. And there was a viewer who actually noticed that he had a nodule on his neck on the show, and that's what actually, and then contacted him to let him know. And that was actually how he found thyroid cancer, was just because this viewer noticed the nodule. He had no other like symptoms that were apparent. So a nodule can be like a great way to gain some insight that there could be something going amiss within the thyroid. Outside of that, there's other symptoms such as any slowing of those areas that are regulated by speed. So if you're having irregular cycles or you're struggling to conceive, if you are having hair loss, especially difficulty with the hair regrowth process after that, poor nail growth, dry skin, constipation, or really bad bloating, fatigue, brain fog, these are all symptoms that your thyroid is probably functioning low. On the hyper side of things, a lot of individuals, the first thing they know is fast heartbeats, difficulty sleeping, anxiety. But that could also happen with individuals that are hypo but that are being over medicated. You know, and that's typically in the later stages once you already know that you have a thyroid disorder. So those are just some clues that can give you some insight. I know that they are generic sounding, and I feel like most people probably deal with some level of floating or constipation and fatigue, right? But those collectively, if you're seeing multiple symptoms in those various different areas that I mentioned, that might help clue you in more that there could be some thyroid issues at play.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Okay. And would that include weight as well, like difficulty losing weight, or vice versa, even like losing weight and having a hard time gaining? Could those be signs as well? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. All right. So I think that's helpful in just giving us some baseline knowledge for people who weren't sure about that. Now, again, the last time we met, we spoke quite a bit about the different lab values that we could be monitoring. And you have a great decoder guide too. I'll make sure that's linked to below in our show notes so that you have a sense, so our listeners have a sense of what the full panel of thyroid hormones that would be helpful beyond just TSH, which may or may be there, or maybe if you ask for it, it'll be there, but not all the others that are equally important. Besides those, besides that grouping of thyroid numbers or values, what else do you think would be important for us to monitor that could give us clues that something might be amiss?

Oxidative Stress And Key Lab Markers

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Yeah, that guide is a really great starting point if you have just baseline generic labs, like you've gone to your doctor and just had an annual, you haven't done any of the advanced functional testing, right? It can really help you piece together with things like blood sugar and inflammation markers if there could be some thyroid dysfunction at play. So that's a great foundational starting point. When we think about thyroid risk for, you know, risk for cancer, one of the big things we want to look at is inflammation and oxidative stress. The thyroid is very sensitive to oxidative stress. The process of making thyroid hormones generates a lot of oxidative stress because there's a lot of oxygen that's utilized to be able to make thyroid hormones because it's a metabolic process. And so we can see a lot of free radical production happen during this thyroid hormone production process. And this is just anyone across the board that's making thyroid hormones. Now, when you talk about something like hyperthyroidism, where there's increased thyroid activity, you can imagine that there's a lot of oxidative stress because now this already oxidative stress-inducing process is happening at say two to 10x the speed that it should be happening. We've got a lot of free radical formation that's occurring. So we want to always be thinking about this oxidative stress balance. And this is across the board for any individual, whether it's you know that you have thyroid cancer, you have a thyroid hormone imbalance, or you're just trying to prevent any type of thyroid dysfunction, is how can we support the oxidative stress and antioxidant process? So a couple of labs that can glean us insight into if this is an issue for you. One is oxidized LDL. Oxidized LDL is a marker that we typically look at more in like a cardiovascular profile, but it tells us how much of those LDL particles are being oxidized. And this can give us some insights into if there's oxidative stress at play. There's also a urine metabolite that we call 8-hydroxy DG. And that is also a metabolite marker of oxidative stress that can also be utilized to be able to help with that. It's something that's incorporated in if you've ever had an organic acids urine test or a Dutch hormone test, they incorporate that marker into the urine testing. And then we can look at generic inflammation markers. So, for example, like high-sensitive C reactive protein, this is an essay of different interleukins that tells us if there is uncontrolled inflammation underlying and that could coincide to some things. I also like to look at CBC, just a generic like CBC with platelet differential, because if we're seeing that there's any like active elevated esonophils, or if we're seeing that there's low levels of white blood cells, this could tell us that the immune system is really fatigued. And this might give us some insights into kind of where to go more specifically within the inflammation panel. There also is something that's a little bit more of an advanced step up from that that I run from time to time that's called a lymphocyte map. And this is really great for individuals that know they have autoimmunity because it tells us really a map of all of lymphocytic activity. So we can see insights into things like T helper cells, regulatory T cells, natural killer cells. These are all things that are influenced by thyroid activity. Because if there is something like, say, Hashimoto's at play, then we know that there's already more of this skewing here where we're seeing more TH1 and TH2 dominance and we're seeing less natural killer cells. We don't have enough natural killer cells that decreases immune surveillance of cancer cells and things. So it can help us understand a little bit more about what's happening more specifically within the immune system. And then finally, I would say is just overall antioxidant status. So with oxidative stress, it's always about is there enough antioxidant pool to be able to combat these free radicals that are being generated? So looking at our key antioxidants, like testing things such as glutathione, vitamin C levels, vitamin E, vitamin A, these are all important antioxidants that can help us understand if the body is depleted. And if we're eating a lot of these foods and we see that these antioxidants come back low, it might mean that the immune system is using up a lot of those antioxidants trying to fight against this free radical damage that's occurring.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yeah, that's a really great point. Because, right, it might not necessarily mean that you're not eating enough of those foods. It's just that you are your needs, your the demand is such that you need even more, which then of course helps us go backwards to be why is there such a high demand? Yeah, I love that. With those antioxidant markers, are those ones that you would still run via blood, or are those going to be better with urine testing? Or what would you suggest for those?

Immune Triggers: Gut, Toxins, Viruses, Exercise

SPEAKER_01 16:41

I prefer blood for them. And you want to make sure that when you're doing it, that you're doing a whole blood analysis so that you can have it separated between serum and cell. If you just go to somewhere like a generic hospital-based lab, like in the US, we have lab core and quest, they're just testing serum. And while that's helpful to some degree, that's literally only telling you what was in your blood that day of testing. Whereas when we do the whole blood and we can see the cellular levels at the same time, that actually tells us more so what's in the white blood cell or what's in the red blood cell. But most of these are done within the white blood cell. And that can give us more insights into what's happening within the immune system, where the body's using up all those nutrients.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Okay. That's a real, I think that's an important differentiation, right? Because you could just ask your doctor, would you run some of these for me? And maybe they would. Depends on the doctor, but that's not necessarily giving you the full picture if it's just this kind of standard serum blood panel, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:40

So it's basically just saying, yes, you're eating and supplementing enough, but it's not telling us what's in storage, which is where the depletion happens first.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Yeah, okay, perfect. Now you mentioned the nodules piece, and I wanted to just clarify because this was something I looked up just because I wasn't sure off the top of my head. And I think it's important for the listeners to know because if you have nodules, even though, yes, that may increase your risk for cancer, I think it's important to know that only about 5% of nodules are actually cancerous. So that's not you, so even to your example, right, with the guy on the TV, it's not necessarily that. It doesn't, it means you should probably check just to make sure. But I just wanted to clarify that more than not, it's not cancerous. Now it does, it is telling you though, that something is not working ideally. And so again, trying to get to the root causes of prevention is going to be important. What about when there, so there's the nodules, but then there's also just like when the thyroid gets overgrown in general, right? And that's called a goiter, I believe. So tell us more about that.

Calming Inflammation And Rebuilding Resilience

SPEAKER_01 18:42

Yeah, that's uh there are similar responses that are happening where there's that increased stimulation. So it's that brain that in the pituitary gland, there's a stimulating hormone that tells our thyroid to make more hormones. And so when the thyroid isn't responding, then the body, the brain keeps sending more of that stimulatory hormone. And then that's what causes more of this like growth process to happen. We also know that they're both very driven by iodine deficiency. This is something we also talked about in our last episode in the role of like breast cells. But with iodine, it's a very key piece to the thyroid because we use it to be able to make thyroid hormones. And so if there's not enough iodine, then the thyroid is like working harder trying to make these thyroid hormones because it doesn't have the key building blocks. So it would be like if you were trying to cook a dish and you didn't have an onion, then you're like outsourcing other ingredients to try to get the same taste of the onion, right? So we know that the thyroid has about a two-week reserve of iodine, but then after those two weeks, it becomes an essential nutrient where the body can't produce it. So if we're not consuming it, then we enter into a situation of deficiency. And many people go on with deficiency for an extremely long time, not knowing that they are deficient. So that's a very simple nutrient that we can target to be able to reduce risk for both nodules and goiter. Overall, these are imbalances of inflammation, though. So they're telling us that the thyroid is inflamed. And that is where we ask the bigger question as to why is the thyroid inflamed? Is it because it's overproducing hormones and it's overworking? Is it because there's not enough iodine there to be able to do the job it needs? Or is there this overall pool of oxidative stress and inflammation that we're seeing localized within the thyroid? And do we need some more oxidative stress and inflammation support to be able to help quench what's causing this abnormal tissue development in the thyroid?

SPEAKER_00 20:39

And I know we did speak to this a little bit last time, but I think it's important enough to say again, what would be just examples of some things that could create this oxidative stress on the thyroid?

How And When To Use Iodine Safely

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Yeah. So one, just the process of making thyroid hormones, like I said, you're generating oxidative stress. So everyone across the board has a little bit of oxidative stress within their thyroid tissue because of that. So if we don't have enough antioxidants in our diet, then we're already creating imbalances here. So that would definitely be one place to look. Second would be any type of immune stressors. So I call them energy leaks, but essentially it's anything where the body is utilizing up excess energy that it shouldn't be. And the immune system is a big player here. So this could be that there is an overload of toxins and the immune system is working in overdrive, trying to detoxify through the liver and our kidneys and such. It could be that there is imbalances happening in the gut microbiome that are triggering a lot of gut inflammation that then is activating more of this gut associated lymphoid tissue that's causing more of this immune activation. It could be that there's high levels of mycotoxins, which are the spores that mold forms, and that is activating the immune system. Or I would say what I see most commonly is an overwhelming load of viruses that have become. So, not necessarily that have always been reactivated. A lot of people think of like Epstein Bar, which is mono being reactivated. And yes, that can happen. And a lot of times that reactivation is what causes the autoimmune process to be triggered. But not even just reactivation, but just overall a high viral load where we have high levels of past infections like EBV and mono and strep and such. When there's high levels of these, the immune system gets tired. It's working in overdrive trying to keep these viruses under control. And that diverts energy away from more important processes. And especially when we talk about cancer, right? It diverts energy away from this natural killer cell production to make sure that there is proper immune surveillance of cancer cells and that apoptosis process and making sure that old cells aren't dying off and that we're generating new healthier cells. So we want to make sure that we're keeping the immune system in a very productive state. And that's where, like I mentioned with the CVC, that can give us some insights because if we're seeing that, say, like your white blood cells are in the low end of the reference range chronically, that might indicate that the immune system is really tired, that the immune system has been working in overdrive. And then that could lead us to maybe think that there's probably some uncontrolled oxidative stress that's going on. That's really my favorite place to look. But then there's other just simpler things like exercise. Exercise generates a lot of free radicals, especially as you get into higher intensities. And so if you're doing a lot of high intensity exercise or a lot of even just like endurance training that's long duration, where there maybe is even inadequate recovery from that, that can be an issue. So we see uncontrolled oxidative stress a lot in athletes and former athletes who have been pushing their body at a high level where you're pushing more of this mitochondria to generate more energy. Anytime there's that increase in energy production, there's going to be a potential for an increase in oxidative stress.

SPEAKER_00 24:02

Yeah. And with your background too in sports, nutrition, right? I imagine that you saw this probably quite a bit.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Yeah. And that's what kind of led me down these different rabbit holes. Like, hey, what else is going on here? Because I was just seeing that there's this link between individuals that are very active and an increased risk of autoimmunity that ultimately can also even, you know, span off to cancer and things, where you would think that these individuals are the healthiest, that they're never going to have something like this happen. But why is this happening? And it's because their body is under stress, not necessarily just psychological, but stress from all of these other areas, including exercise.

Hormonal Transitions And Postpartum Risks

SPEAKER_00 24:43

Yeah. So I just to recap for our listeners, I think that essentially the things that could potentially harm the thyroid are also the things that are going to put us at an increased risk for cancer. So it's a little bit like the chicken and the egg, maybe what's causing what here. But everything that you just said, Lauren, also correlates with when we think about enhancing cancer prevention, it's the same, right? Like reducing oxidative load and supporting detoxification and optimizing immune function. And I think it's important for you to hear from this episode that the thyroid is a major player in all of those things. So as we're trying to enhance each of those systems to keep you healthy and to help you live a long and healthy life, the health of the thyroid also has to be part of that picture. And it's going to be really important that we're monitoring, that we're screening, like we've talked about, and that we're doing what we can to figure out what underlying stressors might be there that are creating burden, we'll say, on the system. Okay, that is, I think, a huge piece. But then the like the second half of that coin or the other side of the coin is okay, let's say you actually identify with some of these things. You're like, I know I have some thyroid imbalance happening, whether it's early stage or not, I've already been diagnosed with Hashimoto's or something. We understand that we need to get to some of these root causes to really try to remove the stressor so that the thyroid can repair and recover and get back to a healthy baseline. But what are gonna be some of the, and I know some of this is repetitive, but I think it's good to hear again, what would be some of the things to focus on as we're trying to repair and heal the thyroid and get it back to equilibrium and a healthy balance? Yeah.

Autoimmunity, Immune Fatigue, And Cancer Links

SPEAKER_01 26:30

So starting with making sure that the body is in a very low inflamed state is going to be so key because when there is a lot of inflammation and the body does not prioritize resources towards our endocrine system. And so you're not just going to see the thyroid impacted, but also things like sex hormone production, adrenal hormone production, all of your hormones take a hit in that type of situation. So when we're talking about inflammation, that can be very multifactorial, right? But we think about okay, is there stuff going on in the gut? Is there areas that we can support the gut, even if you don't have the capabilities to do comprehensive stool analysis to understand if there's like overgrowth and dysbiosis in the gut, just starting with supporting your gut barrier and your gut immune system can be a really great starting point. So making sure we have adequate vitamin A and vitamin D, maybe incorporating foods that help with supporting that gut lining, like glutamine, such as what you get in like bone broths and aloe vera, marshmallow root, are very healing for that gut lining. So that could be a great starting place while you're waiting to maybe do some more comprehensive GI testing. Supporting the immune system, one of my favorite things to do to be able to gauge this immune tolerance piece is doing what's I call a vitamin C threshold test. And so what we're doing with that is we're trying to see how much vitamin C is the immune system utilizing. Because when the immune system is under stress, you're going to use up more vitamin C. Vitamin C is a key player in immune function. And so, with that, what you would do is you would take five grams of vitamin C, which is a very high dosage. If there's no loose stools that happen, then an hour, two hours later, then you go up to 10 grams. No loose stools happen two hours later, you go up to 15 grams. And based off how high your threshold is of how much vitamin C you need, kind of gives us insight into how tax the immune system is and might lead us down more rabbit holes of where is this immune system dysfunction occurring? And so that's a really simple test I like to do. It's also something that I personally do every time I start feeling I'm getting sick, is just flood the immune system with lots of vitamin C. And vitamin C is also an antioxidant, so it really is helpful for this oxidative stress piece. We can, of course, incorporate other antioxidants in there like selenium, which you get in Brazil nuts, glutathione, anything that's rich in sulfur helps us make more glutathione. Selenium also helps with glutathione production, vitamin E, such as what you get in like olive oil, vitamin A, which is what you get mainly in liver and organ meats. These are great ways to get more of these antioxidants in the mix that are going to help protect our thyroid. And then once we've addressed that inflammation, then that's where we look at making sure that we have enough of the iodine to be able to help with that thyroid hormone production. And we talked a little bit more about the specifics of that in the breast cancer episode, but we want to make sure that we're in a low inflammation, low oxidative stress place first before we then add on the iodine. Because although iodine is an antioxidant that is really a key player in our thyroid, it's also a prooxidant, which means that in excess, it can also cause the opposite to occur. Where in excess, it can actually generate more free radicals and cause more oxidative stress. So it's always wise to work with a practitioner anytime you're gonna look at supplementing with therapeutic dosages of iodine. But I recommend that even if you're going to eat really concentrated iodine sources, that you start with the antioxidants and inflammation support first, because iodine, you don't need very much of it. So it's very easy to overeat things like kelp and seaweed and such. It's not to scare anyone away from eating those. If you're eating them in small amounts, that's fine. But if we have a true iodine deficiency and we're looking at replenishing that deficiency, we're gonna need much higher dosages. And I would recommend doing all of the oxative stress and inflammation support first.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Okay. Is there ever a scenario where you would even supplement with iodine? Just not just like somebody on their own doing it, but a preg but you as the provider recommending it?

SPEAKER_01 30:28

Yeah, I use therapeutic dosages of iodine in practice. So we'll use pretty high dosages that a conventional person would say is crazy, but that I have the data to prove that isn't a safe place to support us. Typically, we're going to also check thyroid activity a couple months down the road. I will preface by saying that anyone that decides to go on therapeutic iodine, you're going to see some thyroid, some thyroid issues within your labs happen the first a couple weeks, period. There is an effect that's called the Wolf Schikoff effect, where when we add more iodine to the system, you get more of that free radical production because of the metabolism effect. So we have to wait for that to cool off and the dust to settle before we look at testing thyroid hormones. So whenever to anyone that wants to start on iodine, always if your thyroid panel starts to look wonky after it's not an actual true change that's happening. It's this short-term transient response where the body's, oh, thank you for giving me more of what I needed. I can stop, I can take a step back and I could stop working so hard because now you're giving me the resources I need. And that creates an adjustment period in order for the body to figure out what that balance looks like again.

Resources, Programs, And Closing CTA

SPEAKER_00 31:36

Yeah, that's great to know. So it's to be expected, basically. It's gonna look weird at first, but then you need to test down the road to make sure. And obviously, anytime you're gonna do something like this, you want to work with a provider. Don't try to wing it with your own supplementation. I would not recommend that. I don't think you would either. And I do every so often I do see people out there who are just like, take these supplements and they just give you the random list. And I'm like, I don't know. I think you should probably monitor that with someone. So that would be true for iodide. It's certainly safe to start with food forms, though, especially if you're being mindful about the antioxidant peas first and lowering inflammation or choosing anti-inflammatory foods, et cetera. That's great. Is there anything else before we wrap up? Is there anything else you want to highlight? I know last time too, we talked a little bit about just being mindful that the thyroid, um, thyroid function and thyroid probably hormone production does shift as we age and move through different like hormonal changes in our body. And that there are, I would imagine too, and actually let me ask you this as a follow-up question. When you go through certain changes, like I'm getting to that point of perimenopause and like looking towards menopause, are there certain times where we're more likely to see the thyroid get a little wonky and that we might want to make sure we're paying even closer attention to what's happening there?

SPEAKER_01 32:59

Yeah. So when it comes to thyroid hormones, any hormonal transition is definitely going to trigger things. So, yes, like menopausal transition, coming off an oral contraceptive pregnancy, you know, puberty, any of those types of transitions, we definitely are going to see some shift in the thyroid because the whole endocrine system is connected. So you can expect that anytime that a change happens in your adrenal hormones or in your sex hormones, we're going to see the thyroid impacted and vice versa. Or if you were to even just start on any type of like hormone replacement therapy, it would be good to also monitor what's happening with your within your thyroid alongside of that. So hormone replacement therapy being things like estrogen replacement, progesterone, testosterone, and such. Yes. And with like pregnancy, for example, this can also be a big trigger because during pregnancy, your body's in very much of like a growth position, right? And the immune system is a bit suppressed because it's trying to protect you from rejecting the baby, right? And so then when you have the baby, then the immune system very quickly goes back into more of this balanced position where it's no longer suppressed and thyroid activity also calms down quite a bit because you're no longer in a growth state. You're now going back into kind of a repair position, right? And this abrupt shift can be a big trigger for what we call postpartum thyroiditis, which is a position where the immune system goes into a hyperthyroid state, and then you go into a hypothyroid state a couple months later. And this can actually be what triggers things like Hashimoto's to develop because there's a lot of changes that are happening very quickly in the immune system, is dysregulated. We know that there's ways to prevent that by putting the thyroid into a healthier position before pregnancy, supporting the thyroid further during pregnancy to help prevent these types of things from happening. But not everyone has that information and insight before they go into pregnancy, right? So, yes, that definitely is a big consideration. Another thing that I always ask people when they first come to work with me is when did all this begin? What was the triggering of? Because there's generally some type of trigger, whether it's like something very stressful, such as you had a relative that passed away, or you moved to a new state or a new country, right? Something of that sort, or a vaccination that maybe had you had a virus that you had, you had pneumonia because of a cold that developed, you had long COVID, right? Something that really put the body into this position where like resources were being diverted over towards something else and that caused this whole environment to be triggered. So really looking at what the triggering event could be can give us a lot of insight into what's the potential root cause that we really need to address first and foremost to then put the thyroid into a more controlled position.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Yeah. I mean, there is so much overlap there with cancer, too, that there is often, even though it's maybe not always as obvious, but it's I really think, and I don't know if you've come across this as well, too, but I feel like the more I research the functional side of cancer, the more it is also in alignment with autoimmune stuff. To me, I feel like they're just two sides of the same coin of what's driving one is also driving the other. And of course, the interplay between the two, which is I don't think it's a coincidence that people with certain autoimmune diseases have increased risks for certain cancers. There is a lot of, there's a lot of the same reasons why. And whether that develops an autoimmunity in one person versus cancer in another, I think the drivers could be very similar.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

Very similar. And that's part of what is like my passion and my work, but it sometimes frustrates me because I think a lot of individuals that have autoimmunity, they a lot of times they're asymptomatic. And so there's nothing to do about it, right? I have this autoimmune disease. There's nothing I can do. I'm just going to continue to go about my day. And I have so much passion for individuals understanding that when you have an autoimmune disease, there's information that the body is telling us, there's underlying imbalances. And if we let the autoimmune process continue to go unmanaged, yes, your risk for things like cancer significantly increases. So if we know that there's already an autoimmune disease and none of us want to develop cancer, then in order for us to prevent it, we have to address the root causes of what triggered the autoimmune disease, because that is within the immune system. And if we can calm down the immune system, you know, when you have an autoimmune disease, the immune system is in a hyperactive state. And only for so long can the body do that. Eventually, when the body is overworking for so long, it gets tired, just like all of us do from overworking. And so when the immune system becomes tired, then that's when we start to see like these natural killer cells are not working as they should. This immune surveillance is not happening as it should. And then the risk of abnormal cell growth starts to proliferate. So yeah, I think that addressing the key underlying cause of autoimmunity as soon as we can, once the autoimmune process develops, is a key play, a key player in reducing cancer risk.

SPEAKER_00 38:01

100%. 100%. This is why I wanted you on the show. Because I was like, there's so much overlap here. And I don't, and I don't think that it's necessarily talked about enough that there's, oh wow, these are actually like two very similar paths. And there's a lot of people living with autoimmune in different forms, not just thyroid-based, but like a lot of different types of autoimmune conditions that I just want this to be on the radar rather than, okay, I just I this is what I have and I'm gonna live with it. That it's really worth, like you said, diving deeper into trying to understand why and reversing it, improving it so that prevent your long you prov you protect your long-term health as well. Absolutely. All right. I know last time we talked about some of your, some of the different ways that people can connect with you. And I will make sure that we link to those things again because it's all still very relevant. So all those same resources are still gonna be very helpful, even if it's not breast cancer specific that you're interested in, if it's thyroid cancer, even just thyroid health in general, you know that you have some imbalance there or maybe some actual disease or autoimmunity. That needs to be a foundation. Like I would say, we work on that first, because as you work on that, you're gonna improve all the other systems of cancer prevention and protection as well. So it's not either or, it's gonna help everything, which is great. Can you just refresh us on what are those resources? And then I'll make sure that we have links to them in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

Yeah. So the thyroid inflammation lab decoder guide, like you mentioned earlier, is a great starting point. If you just have some annual labs and you're just trying to understand if there could be other insights that can tell us that there is thyroid dysfunction happening and overall just like inflammation, too. So that's a really great free resource. My functional thyroid foundations program is really helping walk you through and give you a step-by-step functional nutrition plan for exactly what to do to lower oxidative stress and improve thyroid function. I take you through the whole process of how to replenish antioxidants and anti-inflammatories and then tee you up to then start on iodine replenishment to be able to help with improving thyroid function. So you can learn all that inside of that program. And then for individuals who want to go a little bit deeper with understanding root causes and doing more testing to be able to get insights into their triggers, that's what we do in our 101 program. And we utilize functional lab testing, advanced lab testing to guide that treatment process. And then with treatment, we're utilizing nutrition, microimmunotherapy supplementation to be able to modulate the immune system, modulate the thyroid, and just overall improve hormone resilience. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

I will make sure all that's available to you. Thank you so much, Lauren, for being here with us today again. I really appreciate it. I will probably invite you back again at some point if you're willing. We'll find another, we'll find another topic, but I really appreciate you taking the time. And thank you everybody for listening. Please remember to share if there are people in your life who this could benefit. Follow along. We have episodes releasing every week. And I look forward to having you on another call. Bye, everyone.