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Hi. I’m, Dr Rutherford, for those of you who are watching me for the first time. The topic is sodium intake with hashimoto’s thyroiditis, and i have a personal experience with this, so this is kind of a so.
I’m happy to share this with you. I’m kind of interested to share this with you. So there was there’s, a study that came out a couple years ago and um. They they had 49 healthy people who they put on a low salt diet.
Then they put them on a high salt diet, and then they followed that by a high salt diet with potassium supplementation. So here’s. The deal 100 years ago, who knows maybe 60 years ago or or more, are potassium and and and and and sodium all right, salt.
They balance each other and they and they work to balance each of your electrolytes and they’re like hugely important to your physiology. You have too much salt. Maybe your blood pressure goes up. Maybe you get bloated there’s.
A lot of bad things about too much salt okay, so they did a study and they found, and then they measured blood chemistry relative to um white blood cells, and they found that this one white blood cell called il17a.
It just means that this is a blood cell. It’s, a white blood cell that goes up when a person gets inflammation. Okay, it’s. An inflammatory white blood cell would go up significantly in the blood after you have high salt.
Now let me go back, i skipped over myself. So, like 60 to 100 years ago, the ratio was sodium, uh was like potassium eight, sodium one uh and – and this was probably before processed foods and restaurants got popular and all that type of stuff, because now the ratio is 18 sodium to one potassium.
Did you get that okay, normal potassium, before processed foods, all restaurants, salt, all that type of stuff and everything potassium? Eight sodium one: proper ratio um? Now it’s. Salt 18, potassium one! So that’s, bad! It’s, particularly bad for hashimoto’s.
Patients. What we found was that um, when they expose these folks to potassium so people who so the people who took salt, they had a they ended up. Taking a high salt meal and their sodium went up even more when they were exposed to seven days of supplementation.
With potassium the this il17a dropped dramatically like dramatically and um, and so why is that important? So when you in autoimmunity and in the subset of autoimmunity, being hashimoto’s autoimmunity this il17 stuff? This is the part of the immune system that goes out of control and with inflammatory responses and attacks your thyroid, and so we’ve talked about iodine and we talked about how how in people who are hypothyroid iodine actually is good for years.
Everybody said you know everybody there’s, still people out there online, who are iodine experts on on thyroid – and i don’t understand that because most thyroid today is is hashimoto’s but um, but but iodine for a Hypothyroid is good; it helps you to make thyroid hormone, but for but for hashimoto’s, it is the poison it actually damages thyroid tissue.
Okay and iodine is in most salt. We put it in all of our salt to make sure that we get enough uh iodine and we don’t get goiters in this country and stuff. But what we do get is hashimoto’s from it so um.
So we’ve talked about that and and and and and this salt is related to that – because salt iodine salt iodine, but even those of you who are like okay, i use himalayan salt instead, if you use himalayan salt to a even a moderate Degree then, you are raising this il17 remember they did this study first on people who do not have hashimoto’s, and and and they showed that the actual inflammatory response that will damage the thyroid is raised in those people who don ‘
T even have it so if the person has like a silent, hashimoto’s, in other words, you have the propensity. Maybe your mom’s, got it your aunt’s, got it your sister’s, got it! The chances of you getting it is pretty high um so, but you don’t, have it yet and now you now, you eat a lot.
A lot of high salt meals and this salt can’t exacerbate it and then actually set off a response again and all the sudden blows up. Hashimoto’s and somebody who actually didn’t have it, but it perpetuates hashimoto’s.
Now personal story uh, as those of you i’m thinking. Most of you watching have seen me before and know that i have hashimoto’s and and so um and a lot of other things, celiac autoimmune, gastritis, cerebellar, antibodies, so uh so i mean i so i’ve.
Had a lot of this stuff – and it was had a lot of symptoms – was in pretty bad shape about 20 years ago, and so so i doing all of the things that i share with you. I you know got to be pretty good shape and uh and and – and i you know it’s funny – i i was exposed to this material about a year and a half ago, but it was at a seminar that had like 1300 pages worth Of notes, given to you before the seminar, i probably took 40 pages worth of notes – and i i just went by this – i did i kind of i kind of didn’t get it did i, in fact, when i looked back at the notes, I had forgotten that it was even in that seminar, but then i took a subsequent seminar on hashimoto specifically, and it was emphasized much more in this seminar and i’m, like you know what i kind of eat a lot of salt.
I kind of eat like once or twice a day. I eat a salty meal, i stan and oh and the other, the other part of that is yeah. I was in pretty good shape, except i could never get my blood pressure down literally almost never get my blood pressure down between below 140 over 100.
. I exercised, i slept, i you know i i i got rid of all my food sensitivities, just all the things we talked about, but my blood pressure was up and the seven day thing struck me here in this particular study because i started taking a thousand milligrams Of salt, with every salty meal that i did and literally within five days, my blood pressure went down to normal.
Actually, it went down to 118 over 78, which was like not even it was not even real to me and i felt so much better and i feel so much better and it was like, maybe the last piece to my puzzle, hopefully and uh, so that it Was pretty dramatic, so i didn’t have to like and really have to like question that data much more after that particular uh uh episode and with myself.
So i think this is important. I i now share it with all my hashimoto’s, patients when uh. When we start, you know it’s. Like anything else. The hashimoto ‘ S has 39 different triggers autoimmunity.
Just has a whole group of different things that you have to evaluate. I have a. I have a 51-page check sheet put together by one of the top people in the world. Who does this type of work, and i and i and now i’ve assimilated? I use it, and this is one of those 51 things, so you might do it and go.
Oh, you know it. Didn’t make that much of their do it anyway, because you may have other things that are covering up the fact that it that this could be a big issue. This isn’t, so so across the board for hashimoto’s.
Patients you know sodium intake should be like you know. You need some salt right, so sodium intake should be very controlled. You should not be doing high salt. You should not be you know, you know doing high salt stuff.
Every time you do it, you should take a thousand milligrams of potassium and just heads up, i’m. Not that i don’t. I don’t know if anybody makes thousand milligram tabs of potassium um, they usually make them only in like 200 milligram tabs that i’m.
Aware of so, i’m, like taking five of these twice a day right. Fortunately they’re cheap. So so, but i go through them, i mean i go through them, but i can tell you what it’s better to take, and i wasn’t taking blood pressure medication.
I was kind of edging my bets that somehow it was going to go down someday with all the things that i was doing so uh. So from that perspective it was really really really really cheap to you know. Do the potassium, as opposed to as opposed to ultimately, for me, it manifested as high blood pressure for a lot of you.
It’s going to manifest, as i’m, getting heart palpitations, i’m, getting anxiety for no reason at all. My thyroid is swelling and it’s, going that it could be one of the several triggers that is causing that you know so may for you, it may not be blood pressure for you, it may be just it may be more.
The hyperthyroid symptoms, uh just a low level of anxiety, a low level of fear, low level of tension and inability to sleep properly. So but i, but but my it’s. A standard recommendation across the board.
Now for me to my patients – and i’m – getting pretty much positive feedback across the board on on uh changes that have been occurring and people are following those directions. So i that’s, a big one to me so and and and i thought it would be a good one to share with you today.
