Dr Datis Kharrazian recently spoke at The Hashimoto’s Institute about the role of brain health in Hashimoto’s patients. Having been a follower of Dr Kharrazian’s work for many years now, I wanted to share the key takeaways I had from his talk.
- Hashimoto’s can devastate the brain
- Most patients take years to be diagnosed despite hypothyroid symptoms and remain untreated which increases brain inflammation and causes brain degeneration
- TPO antibodies can bind and attach to astrocytes in the cerebellum, leading to destruction of brain tissue
- Symptoms of brain degeneration include depression, lack of focus, loss of memory, poor balance
- A majority of Hashimoto’s patients also have either celiac disease or gluten sensitivity
- The gold standard test to look for ataxia is by testing your balance.
- Cerebellum is only involved when you close your eyes.
- 1/3 of Hashimoto’s patients have antibodies to their cerebellum
- Stand and walk heel to toe down the hallway. If you can’t do this, this is ataxia and you should rule out hashis and gluten sensitivity
- Most who have this cant take more than a few steps without losing their balance, in the earliest stages/sign
- Termination tremors are an advanced finding – reach out for something, and fingers tremor at the end
- As the brain becomes inflamed and degenerates, this is a life changing event
- Patients often still have fatigue because they have not addressed the brain aspect of their condition. This fatigue is brain based fatigue, rather than metabolic fatigue
- Frontal cortex firing decreases due to inflammation in the brain, leading to depression, fatigue, and slower GI function leading to gas, bloating, fermentation, leaky gut
- Brain signals the vagus nerve which innervates the gut…. These pts will have leaky gut due to slowed signaling from the brain through the vagus nerve
- Neurons cannot be regenerated once lost, but we can create new connections within the neurons, which is called plasticity.
- Many people with Hashimoto’s do not take their condition seriously enough. Some advanced labs can show how seriously this condition is affecting their brain using special antibody panels
- Hashimoto’s impacts all the neurotransmitters, but each person is impacted differently
- Educate yourself and find a doctor who practices functional medicine
- Restoring plasticity in the cerebellum can be done very simply by practicing your balance skills
- Myelin basic protein and cerebellum antibodies testing are available from Cyrex labs
- In the typical medical model, if TSH is high, conventional doctors will usually prescribe Synthroid, and that’s it as far as treatment goes. As the thyroid gland is continually destroyed, TSH elevates again, and often the amount of medication will increase.
- Brain degeneration will not show up on an MRI until over 70% of the myelin is damaged
- In Hashimoto’s the changes in brain tissue are more subtle and will often not show up on an MRI
- Doctors receive very little training in regards to brain health
- Hashimoto’s patients have to go gluten free
- Gluten sensitivity is more an issue with causing brain symptoms than it is with the gut
- Gluten cross-reacts with other foods via molecular mimicry. Corn, rice, and sesame are a few of these foods. We can test for many of these cross-reactive foods using a special lab test from Cyrex Labs.
- If you have a leaky gut, you also have a leaky blood brain barrier
- Certain flavonoids can cross the blood brain barrier and move into the brain and dampen brain inflammation
- You have to train your brain like a muscle, and if you don’t use it you lose it.
- Getting blood flow and oxygen to the brain and stabilizing blood sugar are key to brain health
- The brain does not have pain fibers. When there is inflammation in the brain, it decreases nerve conduction (the speed of how the nerves fiber is impaired). The most common symptoms of this inflammation is brain fog and slowed mental speed.
- A GABA challenge can be used at home to determine if the blood brain barrier may be impaired
- Cyrex Labs has a test that measures antibodies to proteins in the blood brain barriers to determine objectively if you have a leaky blood brain barrier.
- Silent Stage (Stage 1) – Antibodies are present but no symptoms. These antibodies are predictive of future disease progression.
- Autoimmune Reactive Stage (Stage 2)– Inflammation and destruction of tissue is present.
- Stage 3 – Most advanced, obvious symptoms are present, demyelination of neurons as seen in Multiple Sclerosis.
- Gluten cross reacts with the cerebellum
- Uncontrolled Hashimoto’s causes accelerated brain degeneration
- If the neuron’s myelin sheath is destroyed, it can be regenerated. If the neurons cell nucleus is destroyed, it cannot be recovered and causes permanent damage
- As autoimmunity progresses, destruction against the brain progresses. To prevent this, at the minimum you should be on a gluten free Paleo Autoimmune diet.
- The brain is the most vulnerable tissue to inflammation
- Uncontrolled inflammation from Hashimoto’s generates inflammatory immune chemicals called cytokines. Cytokines cross the blood brain barrier and turn on inflammation, leading to brain degeneration. You do not have to have autoimmunity against your brain to have brain degeneration. Having uncontrolled inflammation can do this as well.
- Urinary neurotransmitter testing is not a valid test.
- L Tyrosine impacts dopamine, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, which can translate to increased energy and improved mood because of how it effect’s these neurotransmitters. However, it is unlikely to have any impact on the thyroid.
- Taking supplemental iodine often sends peoples thyroid antibody levels through the roof. If you feel better after starting iodine supplements, you may want to check your antibody levels. Taking iodine can trigger an immune reaction against your thyroid gland, which causes tissue damage and causes thyroid hormone to spill out of the gland into the blood stream. This can lead to a brief improvement in symptoms but is often followed by a crash and feeling worse then over before.
- TPO antibodies can bind to certain areas in the brain.
- Many foods with iodine molecularly mimic T3 and T4 thyroid hormones and cause cross reactive destruction. Dr Kharrazian is working on ground breaking research that is looking at all the foods that may be worsening your Hashimoto’s autoimmunity and causing inflammation and thyroid gland destruction.
- If you take iodine (but please be cautious and work with a functional medicine doctor), monitor your antibody levels.
- Often, myelin antibodies will also skyrocket in patients with Hashimoto’s who use supplemental iodine.
- Just because taking iodine made you feel better does not mean that you are not causing significant damage.
- Certain botanicals and fillers in supplements can aggravate Hashimoto’s.
- Exercise is one of the MOST important things you can do for your Hashimoto’s because it increases dopamine, which will improve your mood and motivation. This is the easiest place to start if you are feeling overwhelmed and not sure what to do first. Get your heart rate up!
- Being hypothyroid during pregnancy increases the risk of mental developmental delay and autism.
- Many Hashimoto’s patients have problems with infertility, often due to blood sugar problems.
- Both low and high blood sugar states cause a release of insulin, which can both lead to insulin resistance.
- A low blood sugar state causes the release of large amounts of insulin because the body is signaling to get as much glucose as possible into the cells for energy. Cortisol and epinephrine are also released in an effort to get glucose levels up, followed by an insulin surge. If you get shaky, light headed or irritable through out the day, or crave sugar after meals, you are experiencing low blood sugar. Women with this pattern will have elevated testosterone levels due to the insulin and blood sugar surges, which can lead to PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome) and infertility.
- Measure serum testosterone in both the follicular and luteal phases of your cycle. This can be an indicator of blood sugar imbalances causing infertility.
- Women with Hashimoto’s can also have antibodies to the ovaries, leading to infertility, and phospholipid antibodies, which can lead to miscarriages and infertility.
- If you have Hashimoto’s and want to get pregnant, get your inflammation, blood sugar, and autoimmunity under control. If these do not show anything, check for ovarian tissue antibodies and phospholipid antibodies.
Final thoughts from Dr Kharrazian – Be empowered, take control, get involved, educate yourself, don’t play the victim, have a positive attitude, and don’t underestimate subtle exposures to gluten and blood sugar balance.