How to Treat Graves’ Disease Naturally

Graves disease can be scary. It often starts off with terrible symptoms like a racing heart and a sensation of panic. All too often people who have it go on for some time before getting answers.

The core message I’d like to share is that Graves’ disease is treatable. Most people who have it can have the condition cured within 18-24 months by including natural treatments.

When they do get a final diagnosis, people often feel rushed into treatments that have permanent consequences. The natural question is whether there is some way to treat Graves’ disease without destroying the thyroid. Many wish to find a natural way to slow their thyroid without making them depend on long-term medications.

This article will explain what Graves’ disease is, how it is typically treated, and when natural treatments might be an option.

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Table of Contents

What is Graves’ Disease?
How do you know if you have Graves’ Disease?
How common is Graves’ Disease?
What are the most common treatments?
Natural treatments for Graves’ Disease
Thyroid Stabilizers
Protection from Hyperthyroidism
Thyroid Blockers
Natural Treatment Solutions

What is Graves’ Disease?

Graves’ disease is an autoimmune condition that causes the thyroid gland to make much more hormone than the body needs.

Too much thyroid hormone is not a good thing. It can happen when someone takes too high of a dose of thyroid medication, or when their thyroid releases too much.

Symptoms include:

• Racing heart
• Muscle loss
• Fatigue
• Muscle weakness
• Insomnia
• Diarrhea
• Hair loss
• Hand tremors
• Mood swings
• Heavy or abnormal periods
• Eye pressure or bulging

Sometimes the symptoms are more subtle. They are not always obvious at first. Sometimes the symptoms can even resemble those of too little thyroid hormone. People can gain weight, feel tired and lose hair from Graves’ disease.

Even if the symptoms are not bad, it is important to treat Graves’ disease. I have heard from people who feel that they would rather live with it or hope it goes away on its own. Please don’t do that. Untreated Graves’ disease can take years from one’s life. It can also cause heart attacks, hip fractures, and brain damage.

How do you know if you have Graves’ Disease?

If you suspect it, a doctor will need to confirm the diagnosis. Once we see suspicious symptoms, the next step is to run blood tests. An excess of thyroid hormones is the first finding. At the earliest stages, this shows up as a TSH level that is below range. As hyperthyroidism progresses, the T4 gets too high and eventually the T3 does also.

Other tests can show the antibodies that cause Graves’ disease. These include Thyroid Stimulating Immunoglobulins (TSI) and Thyroid Receptor Antibodies (TRAb). In some cases, the same antibodies associated with Hashimoto’s disease may also be present such as antithyroid peroxidase (antiTPO) and antithyroglobulin (AntiTg).

If the Graves’ antibodies are not present, or if the thyroid is swollen, the doctor may do an iodine uptake scan. This scan can help show if there are toxic nodules or other possible causes of hyperthyroidism.

How common is Graves’ Disease?

Grave’s disease affects up to 6 million Americans. About 2% of women and about 0.2% of men get it. For some ages and ethnicities, it is even more common than Hashimoto’s.

What are the most common treatments?

Most conventional doctors treat with permanent procedures. These include radioactive iodine to destroy the thyroid, or thyroidectomy to remove it. These procedures work to slow the thyroid, but they usually create lifelong dependency on thyroid medication.

Radioactive iodine can raise the risk of some types of cancer. Thyroidectomy can cause trauma to the nerves involved with speech and to the parathyroid glands.

In many cases these treatments are appropriate and lifesaving. Yet because of their risks and permanent nature – many people like to find other options.

Natural treatments for Graves’ Disease

I’d like to start by defining types and goals of natural treatments for Graves’ disease.

The types of natural treatment include primarily diet change and supplements. These are both well-documented to be helpful and the rest of this article will talk about the details. There are many other natural treatments such as mind body medicine, acupuncture, and biofeedback. Yet there is limited data on their role in helping Graves’ disease.

The goals of natural treatment for Graves’ disease include blocking the output of thyroid hormone (thyroid blockers), stabilizing how much hormone is released, and protecting the body against the harm of too much thyroid hormone.

Given how it all works, it is apparent that lowering dietary iodine is the most important natural treatment.

Thyroid Stabilizers

Here is where natural treatments really shine. We have strong evidence that natural compounds can:

• Help Graves’ reverse more quickly
• Lower the antibodies that cause Graves’
• Decrease the activation of T4 into T3
• Help thyroid blockers work better

Here is information about some of the top thyroid stabilizers and how they work.

Quercetin

Quercetin is a bioflavonoid first found in oak bark (Quercus alba). In vivo studies show that quercetin can decrease the rate of hepatic activation of T4 into T3 to a degree comparable to propylthiouracil.

Quercetin can also improve the levels of endogenous antioxidants superoxide dismutase and catalase when they are depleted due to hyperthyroidism¹.

L-Carnitine

L-Carnitine is a naturally occurring amino acid that is essential for mitochondrial energy production. In optimal health, our bodies produce it in adequate amounts. When L-Carnitine is lacking, fatty acids cannot be brought across the cell membranes to enter the mitochondria and therefore cannot be used to produce energy. In chronic conditions such as thyroid disease, L-Carnitine metabolism can be impaired².

Clinical trials have shown that supplementation with L-Carnitine can improve symptoms of hyperthyroidism from Graves’ disease.

In one such study, adults with hyperthyroidism largely from Graves’ disease were given L-Carnitine supplementation over a 2 month time period.

During the time of treatment, symptoms including palpitations, tremors, and nervousness decreased by roughly 3-fold. The overall quality of life scores improved dramatically. No side effects were noted from the treatment.

Melissa Officinalis

Melissa, also known as Lemonbalm, is a relative of mint. It has a long history of use as a folk remedy in the Mediterranean countries.

It has been shown in human studies to be effective at reducing hyperthyroid symptoms such as anxiety, panic, and increased heart rate³.

Graves’ autoimmunity causes hyperthyroidism by the binding of thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins to TSH receptors. In vitro studies have shown that Melissa may inhibit the binding to TSH receptors⁴.

Radioactive iodine is a common treatment for hyperthyroidism. Side effects can include increased risk of non-thyroid cancers due to DNA damage⁵. Melissa extracts may also lower DNA damage to people exposed to radioactive iodine⁶.

Rutin

In vivo studies have shown that supplementation with rutin improved the elimination of excess thyroid hormones from exogenous hyperthyroidism. It also prevented associated free radical damage and hepatic lipid peroxidation⁷.

Protection from Hyperthyroidism

Hyperthyroidism damages the brain, heart, bones, mitochondria, and can cause Graves’ eye disease. Several natural compounds can lower these risks. It is important to protect the body even though the goal is to reverse hyperthyroidism. Brief durations of hyperthroyidism lead to risks that can linger for years.

CoQ10

Hyperthyroidism is associated with pathologically low levels of CoQ10. It seems that CoQ10 may be harder to produce when tyrosine is used for excess thyroid hormone and it may be degraded from the free radicals produced by hyperthyroidism.

Studies even show that CoQ10 depletion more accurately predicts the metabolic effects of hyperthyroidism than direct measurement of thyroid levels⁸.

It has been speculated that the cardiac damage from hyperthyroidism is likely related in part to CoQ10 depletion.

Selenium

Selenium is essential for nearly all facets of thyroid function including iodine regulation, cell proliferation, and regulation of free radicals within thyroid follicles.

A recent clinical trial tested to see whether selenium with vitamin C could help methimazole reverse hyperthyroidism more quickly than methimazole alone⁹.

In the study, the patients were adults, mostly women. They were tracked for 60 days. Those given selenium showed lower levels of T3 and T4 and higher TSH scores.

The researchers concluded that:

“Supplementation undoubtedly contributed to the treatment of hyperthyroidism. Namely, it affects the speed of normalisation of thyroid hormone values and thus reduces the period of exposure of the organism to oxidative stress.”

In a recent clinical trial, 204 patients participated in a study to determine the effects of supplemental selenium on Graves’ eye disease. The participants were randomly distributed to receive selenium, an antiinflammatory medication (pentoxifylline), or placebo.

After 6 months, selenium showed dramatic benefits that were not seen in the anti inflammatory or placebo groups. These results continued to improve through a 12-month follow up. The rate of overall improvement for those on selenium was 7-fold greater than those on the placebo or medication.

No adverse effects were noted in the patients taking selenium but several did occur in those taking pentoxifylline.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C, also known as ascorbic acid is a water soluble antioxidant essential for human health.

In vivo studies have shown that Vitamin C can play a beneficial role at inhibiting the inflammatory changes that give rise to Graves eye disease.

Such effects were only seen when Vitamin C was administered at doses exceeding the levels found in typical diets¹⁰.

Thyroid Blockers

The core problem with Graves’ disease is that the thyroid gland makes too much hormone. One of the main treatment goals is to reverse this by blocking how much hormone comes out of the thyroid.

Iodine is the main nutrient that gives thyroid hormone their potency. Most thyroid blockers work by limiting how much iodine comes into the thyroid.

The most common conventional medications that slow the thyroid are propylthiouracil (PTU) and methimazole (Tapazole). PTU is naturally found in many foods like grapefruit or cauliflower. The amount in food is too low to have negative effects on thyroid function, but when concentrated, PTU prevents the thyroid from absorbing iodine. Methimazole is a synthetic form of PTU modified to improve its efficacy.

Some doctors also use minerals like fluoride or lithium to help block the thyroid. These can be used with medications or in some cases they can be used instead of them. In both cases, the doses needed are only found in prescription versions of fluoride and lithium. These minerals can have side effects at high doses, but the most common initial side effect is a slowing of thyroid function. In the case of Graves’ disease, this is a good thing.

Believe it or not, Iodine itself has been studied as a way to treat Graves’. The paradox is that high doses of iodine stimulate the thyroid so much, it shuts itself off. The reason iodine is not recommended is that for some people it might make things worse and lead to a severe flare up called hyperthyroid storm.

Other natural compounds have weak effects on blocking thyroid hormones. These include herbs like bugleweed and motherwort. Natural compounds are not consistently effective at blocking iodine. Yet diet can.

Since most iodine comes from the diet, one can simply reduce their iodine intake to help treat Graves’ disease. Even if one is on medications to slow the thyroid, they will work better if there is less iodine to block.

Low iodine diets have been documented to help people recover from Graves’ more quickly and have a lower risk of complications.

The main sources of iodine include iodine-containing supplements; dairy products; store-bought baked foods like bread, rolls, and muffins; sea vegetables like kelp or nori; egg yolks; iodine-containing salt; and most types of seafood.

Thankfully there are many good food options available on low iodine diets. For more guidance, please read my latest book, The Thyroid Reset Diet.

If you have hyperthyroidism from Graves’ disease, it may still take the use of a medication at first. Once the thyroid has normalized, diet and supplements can often work well enough to keep it steady while the disease resolves.

Natural Treatment Solutions

I’ve made a custom supplement for Graves’ called Hyperthyroid Support. It includes the ingredients above that have been shown to help slow the thyroid, get it back to normal, and protect the body against hyperthyroidism.

Each ingredient is chosen based on human studies and used in the amounts and forms as in the studies. All ingredients are sourced from US manufacturers and tested for contaminants. If you’d like natural options to treat Graves’ disease – Hyperthryoid Support is an easy solution. The default dosage is 2 capsules once daily with food or as recommended by your health care practitioner.

As dangerous as Graves’ disease is, it is treatable. Most can find that their symptoms resolve as soon as their thyroid slows down.

The main action steps are easy. Follow the iodine-regulating guidelines in the Thyroid Reset Diet and use complementary nutraceuticals found in ThyroSoothe.

Those who do have a good chance of feeling fine without treatment for Graves’ within 18-24 months.

Take Good Care Today

Try the Thyroid Quiz today (Click Here: Take the quiz) to learn more about your thyroid and the impact it may be having on your overall health.

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 help to choose supplements? Click ‘Help Me Decide Here’
3. Get my top books Here

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

Dr. C’s gift for figuring out what works has helped hundreds of thousands reverse thyroid disease, heal their adrenals, and lose weight naturally. Learn more about the surprising story that started his quest.