Iodine-Women especially: Tsh still high.

Hi again,

I don't fully agree with his take on Iodine but his ideas are novel!

Why do women become hyperthyroid more than men? Women seem to need more copper than men. It seems that many women first become hyperthyroid at the onset of menstruation as a teenager, during pregnancy or shortly after the birth of a child, or at menopause. Loss of blood during menstruation will deplete copper since copper is a part of hemoglobin. Copper can be depleted in a woman during pregnancy since the baby's needs come first. The mother loses a lot of minerals to the growing baby and as her body increases the amount of blood to meet both her and the baby's needs, she may become deficient in copper.
Another reason women may need more copper is that estrogen requires copper for its manufacture. Progesterone and testosterone require zinc for production. Excess zinc and too little copper causes too much progesterone and too little estrogen. Since progesterone seems to stimulate the thyroid and estrogen suppresses the thyroid, a high progesterone to estrogen ratio stimulates the thyroid too much. Chocolate craving seems to be a sure sign of copper deficiency and at the end of the menstrual cycle, as progesterone is peaking, women usually crave chocolate to increase the estrogen.
For a healthy person I believe that zinc and copper should probably always be taken together to avoid an imbalance and possible thyroid disease. My theory is that zinc and copper work as a pair (like calcium and magnesium or sodium and potassium) to regulate the thyroid (And I feel that it is quite likely that other minerals are involved also.) An excess of zinc with too little copper may lead to hyperthyroidism and too little zinc with too much copper may lead to hypothyroidism. I was taking zinc without copper when I became hyperthyroid.
Wallach says that a copper deficiency is very serious and can lead to life-ending liver disease and instant-death aneurysms besides causing hyperthyroidism and hypothyroidism. One of the first indications of deficiency is white hair. I started studying my diary for correlations between taking copper and feeling better. I did find a correlation, but it was with taking both copper and trace minerals at the same time. I immediately started taking copper and trace minerals and found that within hours I felt better!! I also found a correlation with feeling better after taking boron, so I started taking 6 mg of boron daily. Only recently have I found that boron supplementation increases estrogen and testosterone, thereby lessening the effect of excessive progesterone.
Wallach also states that copper is essential for Iodine utilization and is therefore critical for thyroid health. He says the optimum ratio of zinc to copper is about 8:1 (8 mg. of zinc for each 1 mg. of copper). Other sources have stated the optimum to be between 7:1 and 10:1. These ratios are for normal, healthy people. Hypers seem to have too much zinc and not enough copper, so supplementing with copper without zinc at the beginning seems to work the quickest to restore the proper zinc/copper balance and normal thyroid activity. A very small amount of zinc should be added when the energy level drops and then gradually increased.

http://www.ithyroid.com/hypert_recovery_story.htm


t2t