Keto diet and hypothyroidism

[Kip4]

Does anyone have experience of Keto diet and hypothyroidism? I’d be interested in your thoughts please

[Cooper27]

There's a Facebook group "thyroid care group keto recipe share" if you need some help

[Kip4 in reply to Cooper27]

Thank you, v helpful!

[MMaud]

My way of eating varies between low carb, sometimes down to keto, and I did dabble with a brief period of carnivory, prior to a very long haul flight, where I knew the food was unlikely to be to my taste. I'm also gluten free.

What sort of information are you looking for, and is there a reason you want to go to or have already gone keto?

[Kip4 in reply to MMaud]

I need to lose weight and am struggling to do so. Since starting Keto 3 weeks ago I have lost 5 lbs which is amazing as I've not been able to lose weight for over a year even though I have been eating well and exercising. I was wondering if this type of diet will push my already raised cholesterol levels higher or any other side affects?

[MMaud in reply to Kip4]

Hi there Kip.

In reality, many people find the outcome is quite the contrary of that. There is more and more work being published which concludes that eating fat (fat, oils, butter, cheese) doesn't raise lipid levels.

On another health related forum where I contribute, member after member have exactly your initial concerns, but the vast majority find there was no need for concern.

One point I would make is that if you adopt, and stick with the keto way of living, then have your lipids retested, if you are in weight loss period your lipids may initially be raised, but it settles down quite quickly.

Good luck with it all.

[Kip4 in reply to MMaud]

Thank you, I am due for retesting of everything soon so hopefully will see an improvement.

[Angel_of_the_North]

Many people do really well on it, although others don't. technically you need carbs for conversion of T4 to T3, but even so. many hypo people find keto really successful. I think you have to try and give it at least 6 months to see if it works for you

[MMaud in reply to Angel_of_the_North]

Could you please point me to the research into requiring carbs for T4>T3 conversion?

[Angel_of_the_North in reply to MMaud]

It's actually glucose that's needed (which can be made from protein)

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/390...

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/339...

academic.oup.com/icb/articl...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi...

forefronthealth.com/low-car...

But I know people who are doing really well on a low carb diet, so there's obviously more to it.

A non-scientific commentary: cristivlad.com/thyroid-horm...

[MMaud in reply to Angel_of_the_North]

I've been eating this way over 5 years, and aside from my thyroid going off a cliff, I'm extremely well.

[Angel_of_the_North in reply to MMaud]

Suits lots of people but not all

[MMaud in reply to Angel_of_the_North]

Of course it doesn't suit all. Nothing will ever do that. We each have to find our own comfort and health zone.

[SilverAvocado in reply to Angel_of_the_North]

Interesting articles. I'm always curious about these issues, being a person who has been very sick without carbs. Most of these papers seem to be primarily about people with healthy thyroids. I've had a thyroidectomy, so I doubt any of this research would apply to me.

I've always suspected that the issue with keto diets comes from hypo patients not being able to keep up with all the fancy footwork of things like gluconeogenesis, glycogenolysis, etc done in the liver and elsewhere to keep the energy flowing. I know these have been discussed on the forum in the past few months in terms of things like generating heat in the body.

My subjective experience is that it feels like my body is very bad at pulling any glycogen or fat out of storage. I feel like I'm running almost entirely on the food I've just eaten, which means if I have a long gap or something that doesn't agree with me (often something v high carb, but v low carb will also do it), particularly on an empty stomach, it can send me into nausea and possible hypoglycaemia quite easily. I believe this is an expected hypo situation, but it only seems to come up in literature in dribs and drabs.

[Angel_of_the_North in reply to SilverAvocado]

I suspect you are right. I can go ages without eating at all and often feel better, so I'm probably good at fat burning. I don't eat keto because it involves too many processed foods to get a balanced vegan diet - you end up Lysine deficient very easily. But i have a wonderful (AFAIK) thyroid and a useless pituitary gland.

[SilverAvocado in reply to MMaud]

Anecdotally from the forum hypothyroid people seem to get on either really really well or really really badly with this kind of diet. My impression is that those getting on well is probably a higher number.

I think it probably depends on exactly what kind of impairment you have in handling thyroid hormone, glucose, etc.

[Angel_of_the_North in reply to SilverAvocado]

I would agree with that. I've seen people try to stick to it and follow all the rules who fail miserably and others who look like new women - 10 years younger, no puffy face etc in a couple of months and stay that way.

[Kip4 in reply to Angel_of_the_North]

thanks, i think I will!

[Nico101]

No need to go full on keto, tbh. lchf was good enough for me to stop my migraines dead. also improved my memory, exhaustion, and sleep.

[EyeandDry]

I have been keto for almost 12 months. I am also hypothyroid and have been for about 10 years. I have had to reduce my daily thyroxine dose by half. It would appear that keto eating has improved my thyroid function, for reasons yet unknown! I was having less than 50g of carbs per day but have now upped it to under 80g /day. I am feeling really well ! Anecdotally, I have read many success stories of hypo improvement on keto. ketodietapp.com/Blog/lchf/a...

[Kip4 in reply to EyeandDry]

good to hear, I shall monitor and hopefully have success too!