Note: The following is the output of a transcription from the video above. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Is Hashimoto’s related to polycystic ovarian syndrome? The answer is probably. There are different studies out there that suggest that PCOS and Hashimoto’s exist together. Some say 40% of the time, some say 30%, some say 50% of the time, some say 60%, but there’s definitely a link between these two conditions. Hashimoto’s, frankly, rarely exists by itself as an immune condition. Usually, if you have Hashimoto’s, if you really start looking around you’re usually going to find the person either has celiac, or antibodies against their cerebellum. Or they’re going to have rheumatoid arthritis, so they’re going to have something else like that. Autoimmune gastritis, autoimmune hepatitis, just a lot of things that you can have along with Hashimoto’s.
PCOS is a little different animal than that. What they think is that the PCOS, polycystic ovarian syndrome, is really caused by blood sugar problems. Despite what you may have heard, it’s caused by blood sugar problems. When you have insulin resistance, when you are morphing towards diabetes, when you have whatever you want to call it, pre-diabetes, insulin resistance. Those blood sugar problems alter the ability of the ovaries to make their estrogen and their progesterone right.
So, where does thyroid come in with that? Hashimoto’s is largely a hypothyroid condition. We talked on one of the segments about the thin Hashimoto’s patient, and we’re not talking about that one right now because they generally don’t get polycystic ovarian syndrome, either. Basically, the thyroid will affect sugar metabolism. Thyroid will affect metabolism, in general. The thyroid, if it slows down, it’ll slow down your adrenals, it’ll slow down your pancreas, it’ll slow down liver function, and it’ll slow down the ability of cells to metabolize things. And all of those things I just mentioned manage your blood sugar.
In the end, if they start not functioning right, maybe insulin starts not functioning right, next thing you know you have insulin spikes going. Now you develop pre-diabetes, insulin resistance, and then that can ultimately lead into you having polycystic ovarian syndrome. That would be the actual chemical pathways that would occur, versus the fact that there just is an affinity for Hashimoto’s to be involved with so many other different areas of the body. I suspect the reason is because Hashimoto’s is a thyroid problem. It’s an autoimmune problem first, a thyroid problem second, and the thyroid most of the time is a hypothyroid problem.
The thyroid has receptor sites in every single cell of your body. When you go down into hypothyroid, you’re pretty much affecting everything. You can have low blood pressure, you can have low blood sugar, you can hop more from low blood sugar into high blood sugar. You can have low acid in your stomach. So, that’s the full breadth of, that’s a little bit more complex question than, what are the ranges of Hashimoto’s? But I felt it warranted a little bit more of an explanation. So yes, and would you take care of the Hashimoto’s in somebody who’s got PCOS? Absolutely. I’d be dampening immune inflammation so that the attack on the thyroid allows the thyroid to gain more function, and then that whole chain of events will not occur.
