by Maureen Jeanson

Created on: January 04, 2009

Every morning you get on the scale in hopes the number will finally be lower. You have counted every morsel of calories you ingested, your meals are full of whole foods and you have exercised your body daily. Why isn't the scale showing you all the rewards your efforts deserve? Your clothes are even feeling tighter despite the morning walks and evening snacks of veggies instead of ice cream. Have you been on the diet train for quite some time now and seen very little results? Well, you are not alone! You may just have a chemical imbalance which really does make it difficult to lose weight. So, rejoice, it is not in your imagination it could very well be in your thyroid!

First let's look and understand how the thyroid works in our bodies. The thyroid is located in the front of the neck, made of two lobes that lie along the trachea. The primary function of the thyroid is to take iodine found in the foods we eat and change it into thyroid hormones. Thyroid cells are the only cells in the entire body that can absorb iodine. These cells then combine the iodine with an amino acid tyrosine to make the T3 and T4 hormones. These hormones, T3 and T4, are then released into the blood stream and control our bodies metabolism. Every cell in our body depends on these hormones for metabolic function. Every cell depends on the fine balance of hormones put out by the thyroid for your body to function at optimum levels.

The thyroid is controlled by the pituitary gland, a small peanut sized gland found at the base of the brain. When the levels of T3 and T4 drop to low in our blood stream the pituitary gland releases thyroid stimulating hormones (TSH), when the thyroid receives this signal the levels of T3 and T4 are increased in the blood, then the pituitary receives the signal that the levels have increased and stops sending out TSH. You can think of the pituitary glad as a furnace stoker, seeing that the fire (T3 and T4) is getting lower he adds more coal to the fire, in turn the fire increases. The pituitary glad itself is controlled by a gland in the brain called the hypothalamus. This gland produces TSH releasing hormones to let the pituitary know at what level to keep that fire burning. The hypothalamus can be thought of at the train conductor telling the fire stoker how much fire is needed to keep the train, our body, at the speed it needs to be at in order to run smoothly (metabolism).

The thyroid can be subject to several problems, some being extremely common. Some problems

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next Page >>