The Hypothyroidism and Celiac Disease Connection
The term “celiac disease” may be unfamiliar to you, but I bet that you have heard of people with an allergy to gluten. In celiac disease, the intestines react abnormally to gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye, barley, oats, spelt, or kamut. Celiac patients do not absorb nutrients from foods, vitamins or supplements efficiently. Today, it seems as if we are seeing more gluten sensitive patients than ever. What’s going on and why are we beginning to react to common foods such as wheat or oats more than ever before?
Many doctors currently believe celiac disease has a genetic component. Others theorize that it can be triggered by a virus that makes the body react to gluten as an allergy and inflamed the colon. These are valid possibilities, but in part I believe that the increase in celiac disease over the years is due to an overgrowth of candida in the gastrointestinal tract. Have you ever taken counterfeit hormones or steroids, birth control pills, or antibiotics? Have you ever been pregnant? If you answered positively to any of these questions, chances are you have an overgrowth of yeast in your gastrointestinal tract.
We will get into the treatment and elimination of candida in a later post, but it is important to mention the impact celiac disease can have on the rest of your body and especially your thyroid. The candida antibodies not only attack candida and cause inflammation when gluten is ingested, but they can also attack and damage your thyroid gland. A study of 90 patients with celiac disease found that 10-14 percent of the group was also hypothyroid. Celiac patients also have a ten times higher chance of developing thyroid nodules and autoimmune antibodies.
Patients with celiac disease are at high risk of having autoimmune disorders and specific digestive diseases also correlate with autoimmune thyroid processes as Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and Grave’s disease.
