Restoring Iron Levels To Balance Health
“When your ferritin is low you get reduced conversion of T4 or T3 or what we call thyroid resistance. With less activation with thyroid in the cell I became thyroid sick, not technically hypothyroid,” says Suzy Cohen, RPh, who is known as pharmacist to the world. “It should have been recognized by my physician yet it was not.” She used her own information and research to solve her own illness.
Ferritin is a measure of iron storage. Low iron levels make it difficult for the thyroid to function properly.
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WebMD says, “Ferritin is a protein in the body that binds to iron; most of the iron stored in the body is bound to ferritin. Ferritin is found in the liver, spleen, skeletal muscles, and bone marrow. Only a small amount of ferritin is found in the blood. The amount of ferritin in the blood shows how much iron is stored in your body.”
One of the most natural ways to increase iron intake is to cook in cast iron cookware like this one. Cast iron is traditionally seasoned from the manufacturer with GMO oil. When you receive your cookware it is important to clean it well and re-season it with non-GMO oil such as tallow, lard, strained bacon grease or coconut oil. Personally, my favorite way to re-season a skillet is to fry French fries made from rutabaga in tallow or lard.
Cohen’s symptoms were fatigue, cold, anxiety, insomnia, weight gain, inability to concentrate and brain fog. She was prescribed an antidepressant after her thyroid tested in the normal range even though a strong percentage of thyroid tests show false negatives. Click here to read more.
She says there are different things you can do to test your ferritin levels. “You can do a urine iodine level to see how well you’re able to make thyroid hormone. You can’t make thyroid hormone without iodine.” She goes on to say, “Because of my experience I rank a blood ferritin test as important.”
A natural way to test your iron levels is to pull down the lower eyelid. A pale yellow color reflects low iron while a vibrant red with swollen blood vessels reflects an iron level within range.
Dr. David Brownstein recommends taking supplemental iodine, 1-2 drops in your water, to solve the deficiency and feeds the thyroid desperately needed iodine. Click here for his recommendation.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says, “Iron deficiency is the most common and widespread nutritional disorder in the world. It is the only nutrient deficiency which is also significantly prevalent in Industrialized Countries. The numbers are staggering: 2 billion people – over 30% of the world’s population – are anemic, many due to iron deficiency.”
The WHO goes on to say, “Iron deficiency anemia is aggravated by worm infections.”
Cohen recommends one specific plan of attack to restore your levels saying, “For me, it was because I was low in hydrochloric acid. I’m taking betaine supplement. I take 3-4 with every meal every day. You can’t extract iron from your meals and activate it. That was my problem, I was so low in acid that it didn’t matter how much meat I ate or how much spinach I ate I wasn’t going to extract the iron from my meals without the acid.”
After discussing the matter with Cohen, she told me she takes a product by Thorne Research “Betaine with pepsin“.
She adds that the food you eat could be assisting in making you sick. Cohen recommends dropping the dairy, gluten and other inflammatory foods in an order to remove the antibodies that prevent healing and increase inflammation.
She also says birth control pills (even if used for acne), birth control patch, synthetic hormones and chemicals in the plastic water bottles can cause the body to manufacture thyroid binding globulin molecules that bind up thyroid hormone making it unusable to you. This happens and leaves the TSH level normal. She further discusses the birth control pill and others in her book Drug Muggers.
Her book is focused on which drugs steal which nutrients from your body including coffee, pharmaceutical medicines, additives or binders. She promotes a probiotic supplement that is GMO free like Dr. Ohhira’s Probiotics . She says, “Probiotics are modulators. They help you process neurotransmitters to improve mood and coping chemicals and reduce anxiety, reduce stress, reduce depression, help with infection because the seat of our immune system lies in the gut – 70 to 80%.”
Other therapeutic grade probiotic options are important like Biokult (click here to order), Prescript Assist (click here to order) or Living Streams (click here to order). For a list of the best top rated therapeutic strength probiotics click here.
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*Nourishing Plot is written by a mom whose son has been delivered from the effects of autism (Asperger’s syndrome), ADHD, bipolar disorder, manic depression, hypoglycemia and dyslexia through food. This is not a news article published by a paper trying to make money. This blog is put out by a mom who sees first hand the effects of nourishing food vs food-ish items. No company pays her for writing these blogs, she considers this a form of missionary work. It is her desire to scream it from the rooftops so that others don’t suffer from the damaging effect of today’s “food”.
Other sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/suzy-cohen-rph/
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/health/sfl-suzy-cohen-columnist,0,2948334.columnist
http://thethyroidsummit.com/suzy-cohen-rph/
http://www.who.int/nutrition/topics/ida/en/
http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/ferritin
