9 Reasons Why High Fat Can Harm Your Thyroid

Are you concerned that you might be doing unintentional damage to your thyroid? A diet that is high in fats, and low in carbs, could have disastrous implications for your health. Today, I want to go through the ways in which a high fat, low carb diet might actually be harming your thyroid. Let’s put together a Hashimoto’s disease diet plan that works with your health in mind.It’s funny how times change. In the 80’s and 90’s, I actually argued against high-carb low-fat diets. Now, we’re dealing with the opposite. This has me wondering if, in another decade or so, I might find myself reusing the same articles that were going against low-fat diet plans.

This idea of history is important to consider. Many have claimed that the low-fat diet “craze” of the 80’s inadvertently led to today’s obesity epidemic. This simply is not what happened. Even though low-fat diets were advocated across the board, the general population did not truly adhere to them¹. The diets themselves were simply not popular enough to lead to the problems we’re facing today.

Dieting for Your Thyroid

When it comes down to it, the proper diet for our thyroid is one that relies on balance. We need to constantly be incorporating a healthy amount of the three major sources of macronutrients:

• Proteins
• Fats
• Carbohydrates

The mix here is important, and later on I’m going to tell you exactly how you should be working each into your diet so that you can diet with your health in mind. The main thing to remember is that your diet is only ever going to total 100% of these three sources. When you go high-fat, or low-carb, you are tipping the scales and offsetting the other two sources. This is where we run into problems.

Top 9 Ways A Low-Carb Diet Can Harm Your Health

Today, let’s look at the ways in which a low-carb diet can actually have a negative effect on your health. Keeping in mind that when we are low on carbs, we are going to be higher on fats – this is important to remember.

Let’s take a look…

Thyroid Antibodies

When the amount of protein that you are getting is too low, or when the fat you consume gets too high, your thyroid antibodies tend to worsen.

Dietary research has shown that there is a diet that is low in fat, and high in protein, which has lowered antibodies in certain subjects². It is important to keep in mind, though, that this diet might not be particularly effective long-term. It was too low in fibre diversity and food variety to be recommended in earnest, but could have benefits for a few months with those who have particularly high thyroid antibodies.

Dysbiosis

Dysbiosis is a term for when the microbial balance in your gut is off-set³. This can lead to inflammatory issues, and issues for your long-term autoimmune health.

A diet that is low in carbohydrates can also be low in bifidobacteria. This type of bacteria plays a very important role in your digestive health, and you do not want to run the risk of losing them. At the same time, low-carb diets can be high in bacteroidetes⁴. This can also lead to gastrointestinal issues like irritable bowel disorder (IBD) and ulcerative colitis (UC).

High Cortisol

When you are low on carbs, but high on fats, you risk increasing your cortisol levels⁵. I have talked about cortisol before, as the hormone in our brains that is released when we are stressed out. When this happens, we tend to binge eat and to indulge in foods that are not good for our health at all (sugars and other snack foods).

High cortisol is not only bad for your immediate body weight, but it is also harsh on chronic diseases. The less cortisol your body produces, the better you are going to feel.

Low Serotonin

Serotonin is important for our bodies⁶. As a neurotransmitter, it helps keep our bodies running properly. We actually need carbs in order to keep our serotonin levels where they need to be – carbs actually help release this important hormone into our bodies.

When we get more serotonin, the benefits are very clear:

• We experience reduced pain and depression
• Our mood improves
• Brain cell regeneration in our bodies is encouraged

What’s not to love about serotonin? Keeping carbs out of our diet really hurts the important functions that this hormone carries out in our body. We ache more, we are more likely to feel down in the dumps, and that is definitely not the way we want to feel!

Insomnia

How are you sleeping at night? Melatonin is the hormone that allows us to get a good night’s rest, and we all know how important sleep is for our overall health. We just finished talking about serotonin, and both of these hormones share a very close relationship⁷.

Therefore, when our bodies are not producing serotonin, melatonin levels are suffering at the same time. When that happens, our sleep suffers – and so do our bodies. This means that a diet that is low in carbs can actually lead to insomnia in some patients⁸.

Muscular Pain

Studies have shown the relationship between muscular pain and a low-carb diet. Cyclists, in particular, have been studied to prove this point. Studies with cyclists have shown that those with low-glycogen levels endured more muscle damage than those without⁹.

What this tells us is that carbs play an important role in helping our muscles heal, and helping them properly “rebound” from strenuous exercise¹⁰.

Infertility

Studies have shown that if we are getting more grain fibre into our diets, we reduce the risk of infertility – by 44%¹¹. All it takes is an intake of cereal fibre, 10 grams per day, to provide less risk for ovulatory infertility. It was this high intake of processed carbohydrates that reduced this risk, so the benefits are clear when it comes to battling infertility.

Exercise Performance

Research has shown that diets which are high in fat actually deny the benefits of exercise¹². When we exercise, we help give our bodies so much of what it needs – it would be an awful thing to waste, if you ask me!  

Hypothyroidism

Diets that are too high in fat can actually block your body from making t4 into the active hormone t3¹³. This means that you could potentially be harming your thyroid gland, and placing it into a suppressed state¹⁴. When we are talking about our overall health, hypothyroidism is something we want to avoid entirely.

Your Diet and Your Health

It’s time to discuss the perfect mix that I mentioned earlier. Now that we know our diets are all about balance, we need to learn how we can eat for our thyroid. Fats are an essential part of our diets. Low-fat diets go too far, but high-fat diets are also not the answer.

Most do best when they have this mix:

• Fats around 20-35% of total calories
• Protein around 25-35% of total calories
• Carbs from 30-55% of total calories

Is this the kind of diet you are currently enjoying? If not, you should consider the ways that you can change your diet to benefit your life (Read: How to end your weight loss ordeal). There are so many options, and they are easy to implement. Sometimes all it takes is a little push, and some delicious recipes (Click Here).

How well do you know your thyroid?

Have you found yourself on a low-carb high-fat diet? Do you feel like you are not sleeping as well as you used to, or that you feel more depressed than ever. You might be doing damage to your thyroid, as well as your entire body. Break that cycle today, and learn more about your thyroid health.

Are you concerned about your thyroid? Do you feel like it’s operating the way it should? Take a minute, think about your diet, and take this very quick quiz to learn more about your thyroid. Answer honestly, and figure out how you can put yourself on a path to wellness today.

P.S. Whenever you are ready, here is how I can help you now:

1. Schedule a Thyroid Second Opinion with me, Dr. C, Click Here for Details
2. Need a Personalized Supplement? Check out My Thyroid Specific Formulations
3. Download and use my Favorite Recipes Cookbook Here
4. Check out my podcast Medical Myths, Legends, and Fairytales Here

Dr. Alan Glen Christianson (Dr. C) is a Naturopathic Endocrinologist and the author of The NY Times bestselling Adrenal Reset Diet, The Metabolism Reset Diet and The Thyroid Reset Diet.

Dr. C’s gift for figuring out what really works has helped hundreds of thousands of people reverse thyroid disease, lose weight, diabetes, and regain energy. Learn more about the surprising story that started his quest.