Note: The text below is 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.
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So we’re going to talk about Hashimoto’s and PCOS today. Apparently there’s a lot of people who are interested in that topic. And I would say with good reason. I don’t think there’s a week that goes by that I don’t do a consult with a female patient who has polycystic ovarian syndrome and Hashimoto’s and PCOS are fairly closely connected. And I don’t remember what the percentages are. It might be something like 30% of females who have Hashimoto’s get PCOS. Might be 40%. It’s up there. And of course, polycystic ovarian syndrome, of course, maybe you know this already, is responsible for up to 50% of infertility in this country. So the connections are kind of clear, but they’re not always that easy to explain, because when you have Hashimoto’s, you have these vicious cycles going on with virtually every organ system and biochemical process in your body because the thyroid affects every single thing that there is.
And the real cause of autoimmune thyroid disease, I’m sorry. The real cause of polycystic ovarian syndrome is prediabetes. And I’m shocked at this point in time how few people coming in here really know that. So prediabetes, the infamous prediabetes of which nobody gets very excited over and you go to the doctor and go, ah, your pre diabetic. Maybe somebody will give you Metformin. Maybe somebody will tell you, change your diet, but most of them just go, eh, just watch your diet and exercise a little bit. And then we’ll wait until you get to diabetes type two, and then we’ll give you the real drugs. Okay. In the meantime, that mechanism creates chemistry that causes your ovaries, there’s enzymes in the ovaries and these lyase enzymes stop working properly.
And the next thing you know, you may not be making enough estrogen, but you start making too much testosterone, thus the hair on your face. And the fact that you want to get angry and choke your husband and all those types of things. So I have more thorough presentations on polycystic ovarian syndrome online, but that’s really the basis of it. Now, what can cause that? There’s so many things that can cause that. Stress can cause that, but thyroid can cause that because thyroid affects so many different functions that can set you off and create insulin resistance. So that’s really where it’s at. Okay. Like for example, relative to autoimmune thyroid disease.
So one of the things that the hypothyroid aspect of Hashimoto’s hypothyroiditis causes is it’ll cause your gut to slow down. So it’ll cause you to stop digesting properly. Maybe you’re not making enough hydrochloric acid in your stomach. Maybe your gallbladder starts slowing down and somebody tells you they want to take it out. Or maybe they’ve already taken it out. Like I think 50% of my patients don’t have a gallbladder. And then what happens is you start developing bacterial imbalances in your gut. You start developing the now famous and well known leaky gut. And maybe you develop this clinical entity called small intestinal bacterial growth, because Hashimoto’s is like the second most common cause of that. And then you start getting gas and bloating and where are you going? I thought we were talking about polycystic ovarian syndrome. Well, here we are. We’re out here to gas and bloating and those bacteria that are causing the bloating, they break down and then they become very toxic. And, but more than that, they’re called lipo polysaccharides.
And when they go through your leaky gut and they get into your bloodstream, they hop on these little white blood cells. And one of a zillion things that they do is they screw up your insulin and they cause your insulin to not work right. And the next thing you know, you have insulin resistance and the next thing you know, you have polycystic ovarian syndrome from the mechanisms, from the insulin resistance. Now you can get a lot of other things from Hashimoto’s because Hashimoto’s can slow down your pancreas from working. It can slow down your liver from working. It can slow down your adrenals from working. Well, those are the three things that control your blood sugar. Hashimoto’s can alter physiology that will cause the blood sugar to not get into the cells either directly or indirectly.
So all of these mechanisms affect the way your blood sugar is handled. Even if you’re eating correctly, even if you’re not overweight, all of these things can affect it. So, there’s so many different pathways that can affect your blood sugar, metabolism and then create that pre diabetic issue. And then boom, here you are. And the fact that it’s relative to causing 50% of infertility in this country. And that Hashimoto’s is now the most common autoimmune condition acknowledged in the world. It’s like more than all the other ones put together. You start putting those percentages together and you start seeing Hashimoto’s and you start seeing polycystic ovarian syndrome together in a lot of cases so.
And there’s more pathways than that, but that hopefully is enough pathways and enough explanation for you to kind of understand how. I mean, if I have a patient who has Hashimoto’s and they have infertility issues, I’m definitely looking for polycystic ovarian syndrome. I mean, you’re like a fool not to, so because the percentages just go look for it. And if it’s there, it’s cool because you go after the blood, you go after the prediabetes and the things, and you find out what they are, cause it, and the vast majority of time, it’s going to clear up, not always, but most of the time. So that’s polycystic ovarian syndrome and Hashimoto’s thyroid disease.
