natural treatment for the disease disease

i want to welcome everyone. this is dr. nikolashedberg and tonight we're talking about herbal medicines for thyroid disorders. let's goahead and bring out that slide show. thank you everyone for coming. we just starteddoing these webinars a few months ago and i'm going to be doing more and more of them.i think that these are great way to educate everyone on different topics. this is going to be recorded and it will beup on youtube and it will also be on my website: http://www.drhedberg.com so you will be ableto view it there or on youtube. thyroid disorders, it's a big topic. approximately28 million americans have a thyroid issue so it's something that we need to know about.

i'm going to be opening it up for questionsat the end of the webinar. for questions, you just type your question into the chatbox. that really has been the best way to do questions because it allows the questionsto be concise and i can answer them very quickly so i'll let you know when that is going tohappen. i've been in practice for ten years now practicingfunctional medicine with a big focus on thyroid disorders. i have published a book called the completethyroid health and diet guide. we're in this digital age now where we canget a lot of information out to a lot of people very easily and very effectively.

tonight i'm going to talk about the best herbalmedicines for thyroid disorders and the big three we'll talk about are what we call non-autoimmunehypothyroidism, hashimoto's thyroiditis and then graves' disease. you'll see a little bit of overlap in someof these but all these herbs are highly effective. why don't we go ahead and start with hashimoto's.about 90 percent of people with hypothyroidism have hashimoto's. hashimoto's is the mostcommon autoimmune disease in the world, about 28 million americans, so a big, big issueand the rate of hashimoto's is significantly growing. hashimoto's is basically an autoimmune diseasewhere the body is making antibodies against

the thyroid gland and that's usually triggeredby an infection. whether it's the epstein-barr virus or it's h. pylori, another microbe calledyersinia, enterocolitica. the serious infections that we carry thattrigger autoimmune diseases and those are the big three for hashimoto's. hashimoto'swe do thyroid auto-antibodies. the thyroid peroxidase and the anti-thyroid globulin antibodyto make the diagnosis of hashimoto's. the reason why there's so many people whohave a thyroid issue and they still have symptoms is because they have hashimoto's and conventionalmedicine really doesn't treat hashimoto's any differently than they do non-autoimmunehypothyroidism. if you have hypothyroidism you get synthroid,if you have hashimoto's hypothyroidism you

get synthroid so nothing really changes butin functional medicine we do consider this an issue because obviously the gland is inflamed,something has triggered the body to attack its own tissue and it's important to findout why. the things we focus on with hashimoto's isa gluten free diet, good vitamin d levels, things like that. i did do a hashimoto's webinar,last month or the month before and that's up on youtube and on the blog as well. i getinto all the different causes of hashimoto's and things like that. let me say right off the bat that we don'tuse all of these with everybody. everyone is an individual and one thing might workfor someone and it might not work for another

so these are general recommendations. the first herb that we use in some peoplewith hashimoto's is ashwagandha, also known as indian ginseng, it's an ayurvedic herband it's main uses in ayurvedic medicine and then in modern functional medicine is as anadrenal adaptogen and we know that when the adrenals are out of balance then most likelythe thyroid is going to be out of balance as well because cortisol affects thyroid function. it does help to balance the way your bodyresponds to stress, that's basically what an adrenal adaptogen is. ashwagandha willenhance the conversion of t4 into t3. t4 is the inactive form of thyroid hormone and thenthe body converts t4 into t3 which is the

active form. synthroid or levothyroxine, conventional prescriptions,are just t4 and some people have issues converting t4 into t3 for a variety of reasons and ashwagandhareally helps to enhance that conversion. if t3 levels are low, ashwagandha can helpin that regard. ashwagandha has also been used as an aphrodisiac in ayurvedic medicine.it can work well for men and women to enhance sex drive. the second one is schisandra berry. schisandra'sa really great herb, it's a good anti-viral, anti-histamine, it's a liver protective herband it's also an adrenal tonic. one of things that schisandra does is it helpsto raise glutathione. glutathione is your

body's most abundant antioxidant. wheneverthere is autoimmune disease we always want to increase glutathione levels and that canbe done through a variety of ways. one way is just eating more protein. one isby adding a good whey protein to your diet. another way is by taking selenium. seleniumreally helps to boost glutathione and it also helps hashimoto's. another way is with what we call n-acetyl-cysteineor nac. n-acetyl-cysteine will also help to increase glutathione and that just helps tobalance the immune system and it reduces inflammation in the thyroid gland which is a big part ofwhat we're trying to do with hashimoto's, that is to decrease that inflammation hencewe can spare the gland for as long as possible.

the third herb is nettles sometimes also knownas stinging nettles, traditionally used for seasonal allergies. it's also good for prostateissues but it also works well with hashimoto's. it's an anti-histamine, an anti-inflammatoryand it really helps to balance the immune system. blue flag is probably one of the most uncommonlyused herbs out there for the thyroid. one of the things we know about blue flag is thatit actually detoxifies the thyroid gland so mercury can be a big trigger of autoimmunedisease and mercury can disrupt thyroid function. there are so many chemicals in our environmentthat the thyroid is very sensitive to and blue flag can help to detox those out of theglands. blue flag is a good herb and it will

also stimulate thyroid function. with hashimoto's, i've mentioned the infectionsbefore, the big one is really epstein-barr virus, h. pylori also known as helical backor pylori can also trigger hashimoto's and then yersinia enterocolitica. yersinia is a gut bacteria and yersinia isactually in the same species that caused the bubonic plague in europe. kind of a modernday plague that a lot of people don't know they have because they think they have a gutinfection or a stomach virus, things like that, they have a lot of diarrhea and digestiveissues. that can actually be yersinia and yersiniais transferred just by contaminated food or

water, hand to mouth. epstein-barr being the big player in a lotof these cases, will use reishi mushroom. reishi mushroom has direct anti-epstein-barractivity. monolaurin derived from coconut also worksdirectly on viruses. olive leaf extract, an excellent anti-viralalso a great anti-bacterial. larrea tridentata is used in the south westby the native americans in the desert, that's where it grows. it's also known as chaparral.too much of it can be toxic to the liver so you need to be careful but a good solid doseof larrea works really well for herpes viruses as well. the epstein-barr virus is a herpesvirus so any that we would use for herpes

virus can potentially work well for the epstein-barrvirus. and for those of you who don't know the epstein-barrvirus is the virus that causes what we call mono or mononucleosis or the kissing disease.95 percent of the world’s population has this virus but genetically some people cannotcontrol it throughout their life and it drives the autoimmunity. so those are some of the really great herbsfor hashimoto's. as i said, we're usually working on the infection and gut health andgluten free and all those kinds of things. these herbs can really help with energy levelsand all of the symptoms related to hypothyroidism. just to mention, hypothyroidism, the symptomsare going to be anything related to a sluggish

metabolism so you might be very cold, coldhands and feet. fatigue because you can't make energy, constipationbecause thyroid hormone drives foods movement through the intestine so that can become sluggish.dry, brittle hair and nails, depression, so a lot of things related to hypothyroidism. now, if someone does not have autoimmune thyroiddisease and they just have straight hypothyroidism, then a couple of these herbs could work reallywell. we talked about ashwagandha but eleutherois a really great herb, not just for hypothyroid but for a lot of things. eleuthero, also knownas eleutherococcus used to be known as siberian ginseng.

this was heavily researched by the russiansin the 70's and in the 80's because they were looking for something to enhance their olympicathletes’ stamina and athletic performance. so, while they were studying it they foundout a lot of great things about eleuthero. like ashwagandha it is an adrenal adaptogen.it is in the ginseng family just like ashwagandha but eleuthero will support thyroid functionacross the board. you'll notice an increase in stamina and energy.it will increase dhea which is an adrenal hormone. if you're more of a cortisol dominanttype person, where you are having troubles responding to stress, eleuthero will helpto raise the dhea and decrease the cortisol if it's too high.

eleuthero has also been shown to be a mono-amineoxidation inhibitor which basically means that it enhances serotonin so that can helpwith mood especially if someone has depression. eleuthero is great for chronic fatigue andlow thyroid function. one of my favorite herbs, bladderwrack isone of the most popular ones out there on the internet and it's in health food stores.a big part of that is because bladderwrack contains iodine and that's why we don't havebladderwrack recommended under hashimoto's because in hashimoto's you don't want to taketoo much iodine. bladderwrack also has some compounds in itthat support the thyroid so just an overall simulator and supporter of the thyroid gland.

ashwagandha, we talked about that but theother thing i forgot to mention about ashwagandha is that it does improve sleep in some people.sometimes we'll have people take it a night if they don't seem to have any kind of stimulatingaffect from it. it really helps people sleep. guggulipid, commiphora mukul is another classichypothyroid herb. basically this works by enhancing the conversion of t4 into t3. wetalked about why that was important, because t4 is inactive and t3 is active so we wantto enhance that conversion. so these are great herbs if you have generalhypothyroidism that's non-autoimmune in nature. let's talk a little bit about graves' diseasewhich hyperthyroidism. in hyperthyroidism, the symptoms are going to be the oppositeof hypothyroidism.

in hashimoto's people might start off morehyper and then they eventually go to hypothyroid. with graves' they're always hyperthyroid soyou have too much thyroid hormone so the metabolism is revved up. initially you'll see a lot ofweight loss, rapid heart rates, pounding hearts, agitation and you might feel really nervous,you might be sweating a lot and insomnia. again, your whole metabolism is revved upso everything is in this heightened capacity. with graves' disease we want to manage thesymptoms and find the underlying cause of the autoimmunity's. graves' is also an autoimmune disease likehashimoto's, it's just a little bit different. with graves' we'll use bugleweed, a classicherb for hyperthyroidism and in graves' disease

there is antibodies usually against thyroidstimulating hormone receptors and bugleweed helps to block that action. bugleweed also inhibits the conversion oft4 into t3 so this is good because in graves' you're going to see a very high t4 and t3levels so we want to get those levels down so bugleweed works very well. lemon-balm, also known as melissa officinalis.lemon-balm does the same thing as the bugleweed but it also helps with the symptoms. lemon-balmworks really well for people who are agitated and restless and who can't sleep. lemon-balm also works well when what we callcatecholamines which are adrenalin epinephrine

and nor-epinephrine. when adrenalin is high,lemon-balm really helps to calm that down. it's also anti-viral specifically a lot ofthe research has been done on its anti-viral properties against herpes and it also reducesanxiety. so lemon-balm is another great herb. then motherwort inhibits the conversion oft4 into t3 so we use a product called thyroid calm pound from herbalists and alchemists and it hasbugleweed in it, lemon-balm and motherwort. it is designed for hyperthyroidism. now with graves' you also want to look forepstein-barr virus as a potential trigger. h. pylori tends to be the big player in graves'disease. the helicolbacter pylori, it's a bacteriain the stomach. it's one of the most common

causes of ulcers because people are undera lot of stress and that breaks down the stomach barrier. it breaks down the mucus membrane and thenthe h. pylori is opportunistic so it grows and eats away at the lining of the stomach.in some cases is just stays there at a very low activity because the person is under alot of stress and so these all work great. for h. pylori, matsic gum, zinc carnosineand berberine. berberine is found in things like goldenseal and chinese coptus, oregongrape root are very good for h. pylori. dgl also known as deglycyrrhizinated licorice,vitamin c and then methylmethioninesulfonium, all of these will inhibit h. pylori growth.

so when we're working with grave's, we wantto help with the symptoms, with the herbs but we also want to address the infection,namely h. pylori and then we're doing our other functional medicine things like healthydiet, gluten free diet, work on healing the gut, et cetera. l-carnitine, although it's not an herb i didwant to mention it here. l-carnitine has been shown at about two to four grams a day tosignificantly reduce the symptoms of graves' disease. l-carnitine works by inhibiting t3uptake into the cell. in graves' you have a massive amount of t3floating around, l-carnitine inhibits the t3 from getting into the cell and bindingto the receptor.

these work really well. i did mention boostingglutathione when we talked about hypothyroidism so we use a lot of n-acetyl-cysteine and wheyprotein and selenium and things like that. all of these work really well for graves'. let's just briefly talk about the best wayto take all of these herbs. my two favorite ways are either capsules or an alcohol basedherbal tincture. capsules on average for any of these herbs,you want to take about four to six capsules a day depending on how much is in it and youwant to look for a standardized extract or just a whole herb from a viable source. a lot of people wonder if they should be takenwith or without food, clinically i really

haven't seen many differences if you're takingherbs with or without food. and alcohol-based tinctures, these are highlyeffective. you get about 30 percent better absorption than with the capsules and that'sbecause of the alcohol with helps with the absorption of the herb. one of the important things about herbs isactually smelling the herb and so when people are taking these herbal tinctures, eitherstraight or in a little bit of water, they smell the herb and that traditionally hasbeen said to enhance its properties. usually one dropper full, one squeeze is about30 drops and so if you're 100 pounds you take about 30, if you're 150 pounds you take about60 drops, if you're 200 pounds about 90 and

so you kind of adjust it from there. initially you might need to take the tincturesevery couple of hours for the first few days just to get it built in your system. sometimeswe'll have people take it five to six times a day for two or three days and then dropback to about three times a day. and again, the same thing with alcohol, itdoesn't really matter if it's with or without food. these are the two most highly effective waysto take these herbs if you are going to try them or if you have any of these thyroid issues. it's really important to identify the underlyinginfection that's driving the autoimmune disease.

we talked a little bit about the epstein-barrvirus and h. pylori. for non-autoimmune hypothyroidism, the herbscan give a nice boost to the gland, not really a long term solution. you want to find outwhy the gland isn't working well. whether it's an iodine deficiency, nutrient deficiency,whether it's the adrenals that are shutting down the thyroid or mercury, environmentaltoxins, all these thing can affect the thyroid. capsules or tinctures are the preferred methods.the adrenals must be in balance. it's really important that you're under the supervisionof an endocrinologist if you have graves' disease. too much thyroid hormone can kill you andresult in death or being rushed to the emergency

room. you should be on medication if you havegraves' and i have a basal body temperature tracking chart at the patient resources linkand this is something that i recommend for anyone with hypothyroid, is to check yourbasal body temperature. it explains how to do that and so what wedo is we look at this over a week or two and i can tell if the thyroid issue is more thyroidrelated or if the issue is more adrenal related. if it's thyroid related you look on the graphand you'll see virtually a straight line across the board meaning that the thyroid is lowand it's just staying in that lower temperature. if we see a graph like this, where it's goingup and down and up and down, that tells us it's more related to the adrenal glands. theadrenals are constantly trying to adapt to

some kind of stress going on with you whetherit's a food sensitivity or there is something stressful in your life like your relationshipor your job, etc. that tells us that it could be more adrenal related. there are two forms there, there is one thatyou can track your body temperature for a long period of time and then there is onethat gives the instructions where you can do five measurements. it's just an inexpensiveand easy way to see what's going on with your thyroid and your adrenals. we're about 27 minutes in and i'd like toopen it up for questions. it looks like we already have questions here. if you have aquestion you can type your message into the

chat box and i'll get to that as soon as ican. we have a bunch coming in here. one of the questions is, “audio not availableonline.” the audio, you call in the phone number that was sent out with the link forthis presentation. “what part of nettles do you use to root the seed or the leaf andwho prepared and the dosage?” in the nettles, the roots and the leaf arethe most commonly used. this brings up a discussion about using the whole herb versus certainparts of the herb. nettles, i haven't really seen any difference in the different types.i like weed botanical company, that's dr. nicholas weed who makes the weed botanicalformulas. he's has great nettles. any of the good companies out there that makenettles, capsule or tincture is going to be

fine. that's fairly straight forward and thenwe talked about the tincture dosing. schisandra? again, we'll use a tincture orcapsules. i have patients that are recovering alcoholics so i'm not going to give them analcohol based tincture, we're going to use the capsules and they're both equally effective. “how do we get a copy of the slides?”this is going to be posted up on my website and the blog. this week i'll send out an e-mailwhen that's out and you can see the slide then. “how do you test for epstein-barr virusand h. pylori?” that's a good question. for epstein-barr virus we do a blood testand we're looking at a few different things.

we're looking at the early antigen, the vcawhich is the viral capsid antigen and the nuclear antigen. we're looking at igg andigm anti-bodies so that's done in the blood, that's fairly straight forward. then for h. pylori, we do blood and we doa stool test. the stool test is highly sensitive for h. pylori and then the blood tells usif it's gone systemic because h. pylori can actually get out of the stomach and becomea systemic issue. so that's how we test for those two in the blood and a stool analysis. here's another good question. “could someof the herbs used for graves' be counterproductive for hashimoto's?” yes, definitely becausethe herbs for graves' disease are basically

for hyperthyroidism where there is too muchthyroid hormone and in hashimoto's you have hypothyroidism so yes, even if you don't havea thyroid problem, taking those herbs will inhibit the thyroid function. so, if you havehypothyroidism or hashimoto's hypothyroid, then yes, that's going to make it even worseso you want to avoid those. another good question. “for hashimoto'spatient, do you recommend adding the recommended herbs at once or one at a time and for a periodof time?” that's a good question. it really depends on the individual. i'll give you acouple of examples. some people will have hashimoto's and there doesn't seem to be anyinfection related to it so we're not going to use any of those herbs that treat the infections.

if someone has hashimoto's and it's just becauseof gluten then that's going to affect how we treat and then of course if they have aninfections that's really going to change things as well. so that's an individual question. every patientis going to be different. it is possible to go in and take the ashwagandha, the schisandrea,nettles, the blue flag and stuff like that and it's really not going to hurt anything.but we'll usually use one herb at a time. okay, if you have a question, go ahead andtype it into the question box. really good questions tonight. go ahead and download thebasal body temperature tracking forms from the website. those will be very helpful.

janet, i see you had a question here but itjust says, is there a, you didn't completely type it in. as soon as you do that i can answerthe question. okay, so we're getting close to wrapping itup now. there doesn't seem to be any more questions coming in. again, this is being recorded and it willbe up on the website and on youtube in the next couple of days. i'm just getting a lot of thank you’s fromeveryone. thank you for joining us and stayed tuned. if you're on my e-mail list, i willbe sending out notices of when i'll be doing more webinars.

here's one more question coming in. “herbalcompany recommend, since i have heard most herbs are not very good from places.” that's a good question. i like to everythingfrom moss nutrition, and i'll put that in here, http://www.mossnutrition.com, that'swhere i like to order most of my herbs from. they carry a variety of brands that we use. a lot of the herbs out there are just garbageso you need to be sure that you're getting something of high quality and everything thatmoss has is going to be excellent. okay, well let's wrap it up. again, thankseveryone for joining us and we'll see you at our next webinar. take care and have agreat night.