Hello, and welcome to this week’s show. I’m Janet Lewis.
And I’m Dr. Lewis.
And we are bringing you another exhilarating show this week on thyroid facts and follies. We are Green Wisdom Health, home of the low-cost lab work, and Dr. Lewis has actually written a book about thyroid called the “Thyroid Sniper” – available on Amazon – where he explains to you in a short story the facts and follies on thyroid. But we thought if you guys couldn’t read the book he would be here in person today to give you some of the information that we know that you’re just dying to hear.
I find it funny they called the Facebook thing “Shoot’n Straight” and then the book is called the “Thyroid Sniper”.
“Thyroid Sniper.”
I don’t know what you’re talking about, Janet. What’s the reference to guns there?
I think it’s the big mustache. In case you’ve not seen him, he has a huge mustache so he looks like a-
Not quite as good as Kurt Russell.
Yes, Wyatt Earp. Pretty close to Wyatt Earp in the-
I wish, I wish.
And we live in East Texas, so there’s a lot of hunting going on around here. And it could have something to do with the Texas slang and the stories that he always correlates to something back in the country.
I’ve still got a whole book of Stephen-isms, and I promise you we’re not going to get around to them today.
With that being said, I know we’ve done some other shows on thyroid, but since we are experts in this field, Dr. Lewis hears so many questions about thyroid, and we hear so many misconceptions about it. We see people’s labs that they always tell ’em they’re fine and they’re nowhere close to being fine. In fact, in Longview, or the town we live in, there’s really only one doctor here that we actually send patients to because we know he understands thyroid when they need something beyond our natural medicine help.
He may not be the only good one in Longview, but he’s the only one that we know of for a fact.
Yeah, we know of a whole lot of other ones that have no clue. So for every one out there that’s doing a great job with the thyroid, there are a bunch of them that are pretty clueless about it.
Yeah, ’cause people come in and say, “Well, my doctor says it’s fine.” And I said, “If it’s fine why are you here?” Whoops, that goes into a Stephen-ism there. It’s like, why is America so sick? And, Janet will kind of have to reel me in and keep me off the rabbit trails.
Well, go down one now and explain to them some of the things that you want to talk about, which I know one of your facts about the thyroid was – which I thought was pretty interesting – is that an underactive thyroid, so that’s a sluggish thyroid-
Right, right.
May put you at an increased risk of a heart attack even if your thyroid is only slightly underactive. That’s pretty scary that that correlates to the heart. Not many people realize that it goes to organ health.
The thyroid has to do with pretty much everything in the body. I think it’s good to get it working correctly. I like to use crazy analogies, and I tell people, “Well yeah, your thyroid’s like you’re on I-20 in the rain.” For those of you that don’t understand I-20 in the rain, it’s notoriously dangerous. I said, “You’re like you’re running 140 miles an hour with your adrenals, but your thyroid’s running 35. Somebody is gonna crash and burn.” So you’ve gotta get it – I don’t care if you’re going down the interstate – you need to go down at a proper speed that’s safe for the weather conditions.
That’s a good analogy. We actually had a lady in our office yesterday that we told her a few years back that she had a thyroid problem. And she said, “Well I took it to my doctor, and my doctor said I didn’t.” Dr. Lewis gave that analogy about being on the highway going really slow. He said, “Well, their ranges are so big you could actually be going down the interstate at 20 miles an hour and that would be okay, but does that mean you’re really at optimal speed?” So, that’s what we’re saying with the thyroid is you really need to make sure it’s optimal because with it being slightly off like it said, you could be increasing your risk of heart attack.
Well, I’m gonna go down so many rabbit trails. The first way to fail is don’t get started. The second way to fail is get started and quit.
I hear this all the time: Well, I read on Google da, da, da, da, da. And it says something different than you. I had a lady that came back after a few years and she was in here yesterday and a couple days before and she said, “But I just don’t know who to listen to.” And I said, “Well, if you’re not gonna listen to me, why are you here?” I said, “You’ve been listening to other people for years and it didn’t work. And you’ve heard me say success leaves clues, but so does failure.”
That’s why God gave us a discerning spirit. I tell that to most of my patients: Listen with your discerning spirit. If your discerning spirit says yes, this is the way to go. Don’t jump off the train, just stick with it, it takes time. But, I’ve got a lot to talk about so maybe Janet will keep me down off the rabbit trails, but I doubt it.
There’s different research and you know you can get on Google and read all kinds of research and most of them can be interpreted incorrectly, but some of the research says there’s up to 40% of the people in America have poor thyroid function. I personally think it’s more than 40% – at least that’s what we see on the labs. It’s linked to health conditions.
These people with IBS and Crohn’s, which we have incredible results with other products, can be linked and very often is linked, to a suboptimal thyroid. Fibromyalgia. One of the most sad moments I’ve ever had is a woman looked at me across the desk and said, “Dr. Lewis, do you believe in fibromyalgia?” And I said, “Yes ma’am.” And she lit up ’cause apparently nobody had taken her serious.
It can be acne, it can be all kinds of skin conditions, it can be infertility. Many, many times it’s autoimmune diseases, and there’s a lot of autoimmune diseases. And you think you can get it out of your food, the answer is no, no, no you cannot. I don’t care how good you eat, although you can’t eat out of the typical trough of America. Okay, Janet’s giving me the stink eye on that one, too. You can’t eat the normal SAD, standard American diet, and be healthy but even those that are eating healthy you need to supplement ’cause you have so many nutrients that are missing in even the organic foods.
So, it’s very incredibly important that you understand the thyroid and what to do about it. It produces hormones that control pretty much every function in your body, if not all of them. And the types are: T3, that’s triiodothyronine, free T3; thyroxine, which is T4; and then there’s a T2 that’s not very well understood. But the T4, you’ve got to have it converted, for the most part, in the liver and that’s one of the things we talk about. You have to have optimal liver function because that’s where it takes these bad chemicals, the bad estrogens, and twists it around to make it a safe place. But it converts T4 to T3. T3 is the one that does the work. On most labs it needs to be a three or higher.
I talked to a lady up in somewhere up in the Northeast, yesterday and hers is T4, but she didn’t want to do our products. She said, “Well, it just didn’t taste good.” I said, “We’re not doing it for taste. We’re doing it because it’s gonna change your life and make you feel 20 years younger.” This lady’s about my age. And I’m telling you, feeling 20 or 30 years younger makes a huge difference, and you can achieve that because I’m sitting here. I’m so hyper I can’t hardly sit here, and that’s because Janet works on my thyroid. She gives me advice because you’re not smart enough to fix yourself. I’m not smart enough to fix myself. You need outside help.
You can read the Bible all day long, and that’s a good thing that you should, but you still need a spiritual leader. I’ve got several of those in my life and they do a really good job. They’re wonderful people, men and women.
But your T3 levels, the one that does most of the work, is disrupted by nutritional imbalances. So you have to have extra nutrition from good supplements. It’s interrupted by allergens, infections, stress – and that can be all kinds of different stresses – and that can lead to a lot of complications including cancer. So when people come in with a swollen thyroid, or a hot thyroid, or a goiter I tell them, “You need to see your medical doctor.” I’m a chiropractor. I’m good at nutrition, but there’s no shame in using Western medicine and the so-called alternative.
Let’s talk about thyroid for a minute and the toxins. There’s so many plastics every day that the government has established an average daily amount that we ingest. That’s pretty bad because nobody should ingest it. But it’s in our systems – we cannot avoid it – and that’s plastics and phthalates. They hook onto the cell parts and they kind of gum up the works, so to speak. They accumulate in the different organs including the thyroid, but it triggers cancer of prostate, breast, lung, thyroid, on, and on, and on, and on. So, that’s the plastics that even the government has recognized is a problem to find out how much we ingest every day.
There have been different, and many, scientists that prove that these plasticizers, or the phthalates, they outgas from even the plastic wrap around your cookies – yeah, I got a look on that one because I bought some the other day – the plastic trays that most of the meats, and fruits, and vegetables are encased in. They migrate into the food itself. And that’s from the United States Department of Health and Human Services. That’s not Dr. Lewis’ opinion.
The problem is they accumulate and it doesn’t just cause a hypothyroid or thyroid cancer, it can cause all kinds of different diseases. So how do we know if it’s your thyroid causing the autoimmune disease, or the autoimmune disease going backwards and creating the thyroid issue? So it can cause these toxins that I talk about all the time, it can cause or help create … I always say diseases, they’re not diseases, they’re adaptive physiology that your body’s adapting to a bad situation. I think that song’s been written and sung, too.
It can contribute to autoimmune diseases like lupus. We have a lot of people that come in that have lupus. High blood pressure – holy cow, we’ve got a bunch of those. Cardiac arrhythmia – man, we’ve had a couple of those this week. I always tell them, well number one, go see a cardiologist. That’s a good thing. But, usually it’s like a magnesium. Magnesium, I think there’s 13,000 different receptor sites on the genes or something ridiculous like that. But these toxins, and that can cause a thyroid problem, can lead to heart attack. Ooh, Janet just said that one. Rheumatoid, inflammation of the thyroid.
Did you know that many, many times your high cholesterol can be because your thyroid’s not working correctly? And then you’re put on statin drugs – and that’s between you and your medical doctor – but if you read about statins you might reconsider it. The book I like the best is called “The Cholesterol Hoax”. The second, probably an easier book for the average person, is called “The Great Cholesterol Myth”. That’s a really good one. Then there’s another one, “The Cholesterol Lie”. And then there’s more and more about cholesterol, so educate yourself.
Parkinson’s disease. I had one of the sweetest guys in the world sitting here yesterday with Parkinson’s and a lot of other problems. I told his wife, I said, this, this, this, and this. And she looked at her husband and says, “We’re doing it all.” I said, “God bless you ma’am. You might keep him another five, 10, 20 years I hope with probably less problems.”
All these things can cause the hypertrophy of the prostate, multiple sclerosis – yes, that is very possibly linked to thyroid issues – osteoporosis, heart failure, joints wearing out like arthritis, all kinds of degenerative diseases. Not because you’re getting old, but you’ve accumulated these toxins that’s wreaking havoc on your thyroid and you’re 40 and feel like you’d like to die. Or, you can be my age and feel 30 years younger than you are. Now, it takes a lot of work to do that, but it’s worth is.
So, I did two things. I got started and I stuck with it. And I’m always learning something new. There’s a huge rapid rise in thyroid medication. Actually, I think it’s the third most commonly prescribed medication in the United States of America. That should tell you something. I could go on, and on, and on. I’ve got about 40 different notes on just the toxins and how it messes with the thyroid, but I guess I won’t go there ’cause we’ll run out of time. Which is normal for me, huh?
Where do you want to go now, Janet, somewhere?
Yep.
Where do you want to go for the weekend? Or are we talking about podcast?
Well, I guess do you want to go fast or slow? Can you? I guess we can give the differences and what fast and slow are.
Yeah, you can do that.
Okay. Basically, whenever you have a very sluggish thyroid the symptoms are: You’re very lethargic, no energy, extreme fatigue, you’re depressed, you don’t want to exercise.
Fatigue and depression can be from other things, but if they’ve diagnosed you with that, for goodness’ sake, let your doctor or me look at your thyroid. Good point, Janet.
Thank you. Feeling like you want to fall asleep as soon as you sit down when you don’t have anything to do.
Whoops.
Hmm. Weight gain.
Whoops.
Easy weight gain or difficulty losing weight. See, it’s not your fault. Make sure you have your thyroid checked. And if you had it checked and they tell you it’s fine, send it to us and let us look at it and make sure they’re right. I’m sorry.
Yeah, really. Find somebody you trust-
Yeah, find somebody you trust.
Use that discerning spirit. That’s a really good thing to always listen to.
Rough and scaly skin, or dry, coarse, and tangled hair.
Yeah, if your skin looks like a lizard it might be a thyroid, or you might be a redneck, as Jeff Foxworthy would say.
Hair loss. You see the women with patches of hair that are coming out, or they-
Alopecia.
Yeah, or they’re receding, like their hairline is receding back.
It’s probably just stress of living with her husband, but stress is stress.
And their eyebrows, like half of their eyebrow on the ends are not there.
It’ll start out with the outer part and generally move in.
Yeah, so your hair on your eyebrows gets less. That could be a sign of a thyroid, and that you’re very sensitive to cold. So, if you can’t stand being in the cold you really need to get your thyroid checked.
On the other hand, if you are having an overactive thyroid, that’s where it’s sped up, the thyroid is moving too fast. You’ll have feelings of being restless, nervous, or emotional, you’re very irritable, and you sleep poorly because you can’t stay asleep, difficulty concentrating.
What’d you say? I forgot.
Frequent bowel movements, so your trains are coming through the tunnel way too fast.
Woohoo!
In women irregular menstrual periods, weight loss. So sometimes people can be too skinny. And they actually, I know women are going, really, you can be too skinny? Well, the women that are too skinny really don’t like it. They’re just as unhappy that way as they are the other direction.
And men, that’s a good time to be quiet.
That’s right. Rapid, forceful, or irregular heartbeats. We hear that a lot, actually, like their heart’s just beating out of their chest. And then also lack of menstrual periods in women, is a sign of the overactive thyroid. Protruding eyes.
Yeah, that’s usually Grave’s disease like Mrs. Barbara Bush had. Some of the things – we’re talking about toxins – it can be a food that you’re allergic to that creates a histamine reaction and when that’s released, because you’re either sensitive or allergic to that food, that can cause problems with the adrenals. Which, if you’ve listened to us very long that’s a direct hookup to messing with the thyroid.
Thyroid has a lot to do with the neurotransmitters. And neurotransmitters like the happy hormones – if you ain’t got ’em, you’re not happy. It has a lot to do with serotonin and dopamine for the most part. Ladies and gentleman, listen to this list: If you have a serotonin deficiency – and this is out of the GI tract, but it’s very intricately hooked to the thyroid – if you’ve lost pleasure in hobbies and interests. I asked Janet that. I said, “Am I depressed because I don’t have any kind of – I’m trying to avoid it – but I don’t have any interest in guns.”
Is that because, are you saying that could be a lack of serotonin?
Yep. Feeling overwhelmed, in a rage, paranoia, depression, not enjoying life, depression with lack of sunlight. You know those people that get the short nights in Alaska. Loss of enthusiasm, not enjoying your favorite foods – well, I’m good there – not enjoying your relationships, feeling of dependency on others. And this generally will make you more susceptible to pain, so that’s usually serotonin deficiency. And, again, you have to get your thyroid fixed and we have things that can help your body create serotonin from your GI tract, and we know the supplements, the nutrients that it takes to cross the blood-brain barrier.
Now, dopamine is a little bit different, even both of these – serotonin and dopamine – have to do with pleasure, but they are different. So a dopamine deficiency could be feeling worthless, feeling hopeless, self-destructive thoughts, inability to handle stress. See, it’s similar to serotonin, but different. Anger and aggression under stress, wanting to become isolated, distracted easily – I’m thinking, well I got distracted on that one.
He forgot what he was gonna say.
Inability to finish tasks, need for caffeine to feel mentally alert. Yeah, I got the look on that too. Low libido, and usually people that have dopamine deficiency that’s usually the addicts, the ones that get the big high. They can be sex addicts, alcoholics, drug addicts. They can be gambling addicts. And again, we have some things that will help your body have the raw material to make dopamine. We have a lady that comes in. She buys this particular product and she says, “My husband won’t take it if he knows it’s for his gambling addiction.” I said, “Well, tell him it’s for sex.”
What’s the particular product so that people can know what that is.
DopaBoost works real well.
Okay.
But, I said, “Tell him it’s for sex.” And she said, “He’s lost his interest.” I said, “Okay, that’s kind of typical of dopamine.” I said, “Stir it in his coffee.” And she did it and he did great. And then she ran out, and he was doing so great. And about a week after she ran out, and he was doing wonderful, so she didn’t think anything about it. He went over to the casinos and spent – she said, “I don’t know what it was – ten or fifteen grand.” She said, “It’s a whole lot cheaper to buy this stuff and stir it in his coffee without him knowing.” It’s like, well, I’ve never had a chance to look at his thyroid but I bet you a hundred dollar bill right now his thyroid needs to be looked at. So, it’s a very intimate connection with the thyroid. Thyroid’s number one thing you should look at.
And if you guys are thinking, well I have a doctor that’s looked at my thyroid and they said I’m fine, but you’re naming off all of these different symptoms that I have and I don’t know who to ask. Well, that’s what we’re here for. We actually can run your lab in all but, I think it’s three states now.
Yeah, three or four. One of ’em is kind of up for grabs.
And we send you to your local Quest Diagnostics draw station, so there’s generally one close to you. The way you can find out is to go on greenwisdomhealth.com and on there you’ll see our lab panels and you can pick a panel. Which, the one we’re recommending today is the comprehensive panel. It’s the GWH, which stands for Green Wisdom Health, number three because that comes with Dr. Lewis’ free consultation, and it comes with a functional medicine report, 12 panels of lab, and supplement recommendations so that you’re not guessing at what’s missing. But you can actually put that GWH3 in your cart and before you go to check out it will ask you for your zip code and it will tell you how close you are to a lab so that you’ll know before you purchase if that’s something by you. Then you’ll have Dr. Lewis himself actually go over the values and make sure that you’re feeling optimal. Because I know there’s a lot of people out there that are going, I want to do this but I have no way of getting help in knowing where to get started.
And the other people, if we’re not close to you, we actually have a product that anyone can take regardless of whether or not their thyroid is sluggish or overactive either one, it does feed the thyroid. Dr. Lewis would like to explain that one.
Yeah, it’s called Thyrotain, and this a gold-rated supplement. There’s many different supplements that are mediocre, and there’s some that’s a lot worse than that. This is gold rated and it’s independent, third-party tested. It has vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E – the right kind. It has iodine and almost all hypothyroidism is an iodine deficiency, because we’ve told you about the bromine cascade, the chlorine, and the fluorine and fluoride that messes … they’re all halides and they take the place of where iodine should go.
But sometimes iodine is controversial. This has only 200 micrograms because there are some so-called experts that say you should never put iodine in a person’s supplement regimen if they have Hashimoto’s. Then you have other so-called experts that says, no, if they have Hashimoto’s you can give them 50 to 75 to 100 mg, which personally I think that’s way beyond overdose. But 200 micrograms will not hurt if you have Hashimoto’s.
Yeah, and I want you to discuss that a little bit because we are, golly, I can’t believe we’re running out of time here so fast. We get excited about thyroid. I had a lot of questions actually, but I do want to make sure we address the one question that we had regarding thyroid and it was the olive leaf. Is that what it was?
Yeah.
What was the question, exactly?
It’s from Maggie up in Kansas. I’ve got a lot of people from there. Yeah, let me get to that in just a second.
It’s got zinc, because zinc, selenium, and iodine are very imperative for proper thyroid function, and it’s the good stuff. It’s got N-acetyl cysteine and tyrosine, ashwagandha which is a stress adaptogenic herb, guggul resin which actually helps lower – guggul does a lot of things – but it helps lower cholesterol, and tumeric. Then the tyrosine I’m gonna talk about, then I’m gonna get to Maggie’s question about the olive leaf.
The tyrosine is incredibly important in making some of these conversions. It’s a precursor of adrenaline and the neurotransmitters of norepinephrine and dopamine – we just talked about that – which helps … it’ll help regulate your mood. It stimulate metabolism. It’ll stimulate your nervous system. It’s a mood elevator and lack of adequate amounts can lead to these deficiencies, which can lead to depression. It’s in here and because it attaches itself to the iodine atoms to form the active thyroid hormone. So, tyrosine’s an incredibly important amino acid.
Maggie, thank you very much for your question. I’m gonna get to the olive leaf and I’m gonna tell a quick story even though we’re running out of time.
She says, what is the deal, I guess how’s it useful for thyroid issues? If you have Hashimoto’s, which is an autoimmune disease, we have found some oh-my-God incredible products that does not stimulate your immune system because it’s already hypersensitive, but it stabilizes it, and that’s the olive leaf and something called SBI Protect.
But, olive leaf does – I made some notes here – it is very, very good treatment against infectious and degenerative diseases. It will kill or suppress almost every type of pathogenic microorganisms – bacterial infections, yeast infections, mold, fungus, and paracytic infections. It’s shown to be very antimicrobial in over 150 different infectious diseases and even HIV infected patients have demonstrated improvement to their immune system – this is HIV, folks. If it’s effective against that can you imagine what it would do for you? Because it increases your T-cells.
Let me tell you a story about olive leaf extract. I’ll try to make it quick. Fifteen years ago I had a couple of spider bites on my leg and I – you know me, it took me five days to go in because I’m not very smart – and I had a surgeon do a really good job of taking the spider out of my leg and they could not understand why I didn’t get the MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, the skin-eating bacteria, flesh-eating bacteria. He had another surgeon come in and he squeezed it, sniffed it, swabbed it, swabbed my nose. They said we cannot culture MRSA on you. We do not understand how this happens because the last 50 spider bites only one other person really didn’t have it and he was a young, tough guy fresh out of the military and I wasn’t. They said, why don’t you have MRSA because you get it from the spider, and if you don’t get it from the spider you get it out of the hospital. And I said, olive leaf. And I literally was giving a lecture to the nurses at 3 a.m. about olive leaf and all the pharmaceutical-sponsored research that went into olive leaf.
And the olive leaf we use now, we’re actually able to use less pills because it yields more of the allopurinol, and it doesn’t stink like the old one. So, thanks, Maggie. It’s really, really good stuff. It’s indispensable. We keep it at the house. Any time we think any sort of infection is coming through and we use it, it works incredibly well.
So you’re saying to use that for autoimmune problems that had to do with the thyroid like Hashimoto’s?
Hashimoto’s, but we use it a lot on rheumatoid arthritis, Sjogren’s, lupus-
Can you just, if they have an autoimmune problem like that, can they just take olive leaf and that’ll be enough to get it under control?
Nope.
And why?
Well, there’s all kinds of other things you have to consider. What’s this monocyte doing? What’s eosinophils doing? What’s the neutrophils? What’s your chloride? What’s your protein level? What’s your globulin level? There’s so many different things you have to look at. Do not treat yourself. I just told you while ago I wasn’t smart enough to treat myself, and I was such a brilliant man it took me five days to go to the hospital, which was stupid. I only went to the hospital to get the spider bite cut out when I couldn’t walk. That was stupid. You always need help. Our medical doctors will bail you out. And Janet’s the one that healed me from this. So, good nutrition, get your lab. I’m telling you good health, and happiness, and energy can be yours.
And with that, that is today’s show. We appreciate you listening and we’ll be here next time for the Green Wisdom Health Show. You guys have a blessed week.