Show #221 – Dr Alan Christianson – Can We Reset Our Thyroid?

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And on this week’s show!

Got thyroid challenges? Turns out that a staggering 80% of people being treated for thyroid conditions, wished there were new treatment options to consider – only 7% are happy with their treatment. Yikes! This week I have Dr. Alan Christianson back on the show talking dietary research, thyroid, and most specifically, iodine balance, sharing what he learned through research and clinical trials in his new book, the Thyroid Reset. Alan is a naturopathic physician with over 25 years in the medical field, who shares the vulnerability of his own struggles with weight at a young age (read his full story in the show notes – what a tale!) and why that formed his passion for helping people optimise their health using all tools and research available. It’s a great interview from which I know you will learn so much, as I did.

The questions I asked Alan:

• Why the thyroid? What makes you, as a doctor, so passionate about this little butterfly-shaped gland that causes so many of us issues?
• What bloods do you request for thyroid testing to be an accurate picture of what’s going on? And what do we do with the numbers if our GP doesn’t want to look at them/understand them?
• What are some of the environmental factors particularly taxing on the thyroid when levels or exposures are too high?
• What is the difference between hashis/hypo/hyperthyroidism?
• You get stuck into discussing iodine very early on in the book: Thyroid friend foe or someone to keep a watchful eye over perhaps?
• What are some of the symptoms specific to iodine overload?
• But iodine deficiency is also a thing, right? What does that look like?
• So that Iodine doesn’t get unjustly shunned altogether as a ‘baddie’ what is awesome about it?
• There’s a thing called the “Iodine Index” – can you talk us through it and the need for iodine to have a goldilocks epiphany in the health conversation?
• What is the best way to test for iodine levels? (Time of day/multiple 24-hour window specimen…)
• Can you get low iodine reading on your pee test and actually have high levels of iodine in your body? And what might some other thyroid-sabotagers be that we should watch our intake on?
• Has the trend of focusing on any one mineral one might ‘need’ at some point through supplement-happy culture, contributed to the imbalances you’re seeing with patients?
• So at what point were you confident enough in the research to try something with patients and what has the patient experience been like, testing your thyroid reset?
• Dietary advice is confusing and I can feel someone out there thinking “Oh god, now I need to figure out iodine and cutting down my iodine intake? How do I go about doing that!?” In the book you make it look so easy – what do you say to those people – it can be done, right?
• And it’s not just what we put inside us as food but other products we use can be responsible for iodine intake, right?
• How about getting huge doses during contrast dye imaging? Is there something we can do there to quickly rebalance? And our supplements may not be what they seem?
• Many people have chronic issues and wonder: where do I start!? What if you have inflammation, or elevated leptin levels, or another issue: Can one start healing the thyroid regardless or is there work to do elsewhere first? Can the thyroid be the reason some of these other stubborn issues and levels out of whack persist?
• Now can you give us a bit of a window into your protocol for resetting the thyroid?

Other helpful links:

Learn more about Dr Christianson and his work: https://www.drchristianson.com/ 

Wanna grab a copy of the Thyroid Reset Diet? You can find it on Booktopia.

Join him on Instagram @dralanchristianson and on Facebook.

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