Black cumin seed oil and thyroid repair

[Danielj1]

drhedberg.com/black-cumin-s...

I am now 3 months into my personal trial of these supplements.

The section I like most in this article is the reference to the supplement improving T3 conversion (which I have proved in my case from blood test) and something I would love to be proved true that it repairs pre existing damage to the thyroid.

I am unaware of this claim being made for any other supplement out there.

Having written to certain high endocrine specialists in USA for their opinions it seems to have not reached the US consciousness paeticulalry at all - so no push from social media to encourage any adoption.

From those I have emailed they are very open to considering it as part of their practice if further evidence can be found.

One specific though I can try is the before and after TPO levels and see if these have come down at all. Will try this over the next month as 3-4 months seems a more sensible trial.

[Danielj1]

Meant to say high profile ...

[diogenes Remembering]

I've read the paper on black cumin and its effects on thyroid function. It slightly raises FT3 and slightly lowers TSH. I would say that as an interpretation, rather than the thyroid itself being affected, T4-T3 conversion by the body is stimulated somewhat. FT4 will remain the same because it doesn't take much T4 to make the extra T3, but the increased FT3 + the unchanged FT4 will damp the production of TSH by the pituitary gland.

[Danielj1 in reply to diogenes]

Yes, that is the safest interpretation. I won’t argue with that.

All I will say is that as someone who has been dabbling with supplements for over 40 years (started with P Holford stuff an eternity ago) I ruthlessly discard anything now that does not 100% hit the mark.

These cumin seed oil capsules are keepers. Subjectively, they feel they have done way more than this interpretation, TPO scores to one side, there is little hard evidence than this subjectivity. All I can say is that 50mcg levo feels incredibly “strong”

[Danielj1 in reply to Danielj1]

And I now have some days I need to drop to 25 or 0. I could not have even thought of doing that 3 months ago.

[Bertwills]

I’m impressed by your reports of progress with this supplement. I’d love to try it. Which brand of capsule do you buy? Many thanks for posting.

[Danielj1 in reply to Bertwills]

Before I do anything like that can I post my buyer beware statements:

- a US trial is underway who I have corresponded with using lower doses than I did with very mixed results

- my results were only “so so” until I moved from standard strength to high strength capsules

- you carefully need to start with standard strength over 1-2

Months and build up tolerance , it is easy to not take this seriously and rush to max dose in shortest time to get earliest benefits

- it has significant impact on blood sugar , hence popular with diabetics . How did this manifest for me? About 11am in mornings I started to get blood sugar dip and need banana until I got more used to the blood sugar dip this causes. I normally have very stable sugar tolerance ie can skip lunch if needed without difficulty. This got worse in first few days I upped dose from standard to strong capsules. This is why firms advise real caution (sensibly in my view) in getting used to it

- 3 months in I don’t notice Any of this and tolerate it well

- I say all of the above as I suspect some may ultimately need stronger dose to see real benefits but need to be very careful over tolerance

Given all of the above it may be too risky for me to recommend any approach or brand for fear someone has tolerance issues and I feel responsible.

Have a google and speak to a couple of firms for their guidance - that is what I did. If it helps I went with capsules as apparently it tastes pungent in the way virgin olive oil does and I found a brand that has the highest purity in terms of content of the beneficial nutritional bits.

Please please please research all the upsides /downsides first

[Bertwills]

Many thanks, I’ll make a choice after research and take it steady.

[Danielj1 in reply to Bertwills]

Good luck - it has been a really exciting journey of progress in the past 3 months and I hope you have the same.

I track now progress based on training resilience so 7 mile plod just now, 6 mile paced run 2 days ago and 35 minute hill climb 4 days ago. Not a patch on my earlier 40-50 mile training weeks but for most of the past year if I ran at the weekend I was ready the following weekend for another session.

[Danielj1 in reply to Danielj1]

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...

I feel I am an equivalent experiment of 1 for the male of the species to see how much of the attached research on sedentary females carries over to a sedentary male on an exercise routine

[Danielj1 in reply to Danielj1]

Well my first week with 3 x 5 mile runs in the same 7 day period.

Speed and endurance all picking up.

It was nice to do a really hard session yesterday and be up for another 5 miler today.

After a long and slow 12 months progress wise, no sense of any hold ups now.

It would be nice to have a dedicated thread for those doing endurance training and racing recovering from hashis and compare notes with others.

[Danielj1 in reply to Danielj1]

runnersworld.com/rt-web-exc...

Last 3 days of running were 5 miles, 8.5 miles and 7.5 miles.

I have taken the view to fuel longer runs with sports drinks with 20 gms sugar quite unthinkable from my earlier running days but it does reduce the stress levels of intense aerobic exercise.

It will be interesting to see what effect all this exercise has on T4, T3 and TPO. I will post some blood results over the next couple of weeks.

I will keep the thread going until I run 5k in under 20 minutes - a milestone to confirm a sensible level of progress.

[Danielj1 in reply to Danielj1]

A monthly update — -10.6 mile run today in the sunshine at a steady pace. For anyone following this thread I have upped levo from 50 to 75 and stopped all other supplements bar magnesium oil daily.

I need to stabilise tsh at the right levels and the existing approach was not delivering this. Was not helped by

Not always taking levo consistently. I am utterly consistent now.

I have now taken 75 for more than 6 weeks so will take another blood test shortly.

Medic confirmed from bloodmcheck that all relevant vits /mins at or above recommended levels and not allowed to take further supplements. I do not really feel I have been missing them.

Black cumin on hold sadly but I will pick this up as soon as tsh confirmed.