Underactive thyroid in U.S. mostly from autoimmune attack
 

What causes hypothyroidism? Is it inherited? Is it the result of a nutritional deficiency?

A. Hypothyroidism is sometimes referred to as "underactive thyroid." Your thyroid is a small gland at the base of your neck that has a big impact on how your body works. The hormones your thyroid produces help regulate your metabolism, including how efficiently you burn calories and maintain your body temperature and heart rate.

According to a new study by doctors based in Sweden, people with celiac disease face a significantly higher risk of developing thyroid disorders, including hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism and thyroiditis.

I'm sure you know this. What you may not know is that excessive intake of fluoride, in water, bottled drinks, foods, and toothpaste, will reduce the biologically active iodine in your system, and cause iodine deficiency: another name for hypothyroidism. No one ever heard of hypothyroidism until America began to fluoridate its municipal water supplies in the late 1940s. Most auto-immune diseases didn't exist before 1950 either. Nor did Alzheimer's disease.

Most people don't know that the pituitary gland in our brain, is the master gland that controls the effective functioning of all the other glands. Unfortunately, the pituitary gland soaks up fluoride like a sponge. And when that happens, the pituitary gland stops secreting a hormone known as TSH that stimulates the thyroid gland. At that point, hypothyroidism is inevitable.

When your thyroid doesn't make enough of two hormones -- triiodothyronine (T-3) and thyroxine (T-4) -- hypothyroidism results and your metabolism slows. This can lead to sluggishness, weight gain, dry skin and hair, a hoarse voice and increased sensitivity to cold. Left untreated, hypothyroidism can lead to potentially serious complications, including high cholesterol levels and heart disease, such as congestive heart failure.

The thyroid's production of T-3 and T-4 is governed by two other parts of your body: the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus. Your pituitary gland is the master gland that controls all the other glands in your body's hormone-producing (endocrine) system. Through its production of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), the pituitary tells the thyroid how much T-3 and T-4 to make. One of the jobs of the hypothalamus -- the part of your brain that controls the entire endocrine system -- is to signal to the pituitary gland how much TSH to make by secreting another hormone: thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH).

Although a defect anywhere in the hypothalamus, pituitary or thyroid can lead to hypothyroidism, most problems that trigger the condition directly affect the thyroid. It's rare for a decrease of TSH from the pituitary gland or decreased secretion of TRH from the hypothalamus to cause hypothyroidism.

In regard to your question about whether hypothyroidism is inherited, thyroid disorders do tend to run in families, but the inherited form of hypothyroidism is rare.

As to nutritional deficiency, a lack of the mineral iodine can play a part in hypothyroidism. In fact, worldwide, a lack of iodine is one of the most common causes of the disease. The body needs iodine to produce T-3 and T-4. In the United States, however, iodine deficiency is rare, mainly due to the addition of iodine to table salt. Throw this salt away and replace it with sea salt that has natural Iodine in it and use it as a supplement in your water and give it to all kids to save them from Hypothyroidism.

Yes, you can begin eating seaweed to supply your thyroid with the natural iodine it needs. Seaweeds like dulse flakes, alaria, wakame, nori, and agar-agar will put more than 100 beneficial nutrients, including natural iodine, into your body. BUT if your pituitary gland is still soaked in toxic fluoride, the seaweed, good as it is, won't help much.

So what you need to do is banish fluoride from your life. That's not an easy task. Most of the cities in this country add toxic fluoride to their water supplies. It's also in the air we breathe because of the discharge from coal- burning plants. It's in bottled drinks and foods. And, of course, it's in most commerical brands of toothpaste.
Hypothyroidism in this country is more commonly caused by autoimmune thyroiditis (Hashimoto's thyroid disease). In this disorder, your body's immune system produces antibodies that attack tissue in the thyroid, affecting the gland's ability to produce hormones.

Radiation therapy or thyroid surgery for cancer or other thyroid disease also may decrease thyroid function. Hypothyroidism can be a side effect of medications such as thionamides, lithium, amiodarone, interferon-alpha, interleukin-2 and perchlorate. In some cases, treatment for hyperthyroidism (overactive thyroid) may reduce thyroid function too much, and hypothyroidism can result.

In addition, underlying medical conditions also can cause hypothyroidism. These include the liver disorder hemochromatosis and sarcoidosis. In some women, pregnancy triggers an inflammation of the thyroid (postpartum thyroiditis), which can lead to hypothyroidism.

No matter what the cause, hypothyroidism usually can be effectively treated by replacing the missing hormone with a synthetic form of thyroid hormone.

You will need to detoxify body and chealate the toxic Flouride out can be done by fasting,  using

cilantro in your diet twice daily and bathing with Boric acid.