Analysis of the correlation between Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and food intolerance

[helvella]

One of the pervasive issues which has appeared in a huge proportion of posts here is food intolerance. Very often we end up talking about major groups like "Wheat", "Dairy", and so on.

This paper investigated 90 individual foods and looked for differences in tolerance between those with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and controls without.

The main table has a column headed: χ 2 - chi-squared - effectively the difference between the two groups. However, it is more important to look at the individual items investigated.

Do remember that, though there might be clear trends, these intolerances are likely to be highly individual.

Also, being run in China, the details of the foods investigated might differ. For example, the feed for chickens kept for eggs might be significantly different to the feed used in, say , the UK.

Analysis of the correlation between Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and food intolerance

Manli YanManli Yan1 Hai WuHai Wu2 Kaiyuan Zhang Kaiyuan Zhang1 Ping Gong Ping Gong1 Yiting Wang Yiting Wang 3 Hua Wei, Hua Wei 3,4*

Objective: This study aims to explore the correlation between patients with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and food intolerance.

Methods: A total of 172 subjects who visited Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine between January 2020 and March 2023 were selected and tested for 90 food-specific IgG antibodies. The study group composed 85 individuals diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, while the control group consisted of 87 healthy individuals. Data were analyzed to determine the correlation between Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and food intolerance.

Results: Among the 85 patients with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, 97.65% exhibited food intolerance, with an average of 15.76 ± 10.61 types of food intolerances. The most common intolerances were to eggs (75.29%), bok choy (71.76%), and milk (65.88%), each exceeding a 60% intolerance rate. In the control group of 87 healthy individuals, the intolerance rate was 95.40%, with an average of 9.57 ± 8.90 types of food intolerances. The most prevalent intolerances in the control group were to bok choy (54.02%) and eggs (52.87%), each exceeding a 50% intolerance rate.

Conclusion: The findings suggest that patients with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis are more likely to develop food intolerance compared to the healthy population, which may indicate a correlation between Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and food intolerance. Different dietary patterns may affect the activity of the thyroid axis and may even be the cause of autoimmune thyroid disease. The technique of detecting food intolerance IgG antibodies has the potential to be an important reference for dietary interventions in patients with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

Full open access paper here:

frontiersin.org/journals/nu...

Recommended that you use the green link to download the PDF - some parts are difficult to read on the webpage version.

[Regenallotment Ambassador]

That is a good find.

I like this bit:

Mei et al. (15) employed a treatment regimen combining

medication with dietary restrictions (mainly including “alternate

diet” “No-Eat” and “Absolute No-Eat”) based on food intolerance

test results in 180 patients with chronic urticaria. Their study

found that compared to the control group, the quality of life of

the treatment group improved, and the duration and frequency of

outbreaks decreased.

[LindaC]

Fascinating - thank you!

[TiggerMe Ambassador]

So interesting, certainly ties in with my findings! I shall read properly tomorrow as the bit that tickled me was Ping Gong of the Chinese Medicine College

[helvella Administrator in reply to TiggerMe]

Should have been a chef/maître d./waiter. A fairly discreet one.

[TiggerMe Ambassador in reply to helvella]

🤭 Don't encourage me

[BB001]

Thank you yet again helvella! After reading this article, I'm questioning the sense of the allergy consultants request that I add foods that I react to back into my diet.

[Sleepman]

Thank you , interesting. Must read in more detail, scanned the table.

My wife's family is part chinese and I think milk intolerance is much more common genetic thing.

I am gluten intollerant and "proper" chinese resteraunt food is one of the hardest things to miss out on.

I/we love bak choy / pak choi ... horrified it is high on the list.

Surprised Gluten / wheat is not a higher. This is in most soy sauce.

I think oats are not even mentioned..

[TiggerMe Ambassador]

So the upside is that we may become more tolerant of most things as we age, which is hilarious as my tolerance levels for everything else in life are certainly on the slide!

Funny to think the Chinese are being exposed to cheddar cheese and who knew bok choy was such a villain!

I don't feel quite such a princess now when I list off my intolerances and am grateful of the others on the list I'm tolerating 😅 glass half full, just not of milk thanks 🥃

Nightshades, dairy, barley, malt and would agree that meat is more of a digestive struggle than an actual intolerance

[Tina_Maria]

Although this looks interesting, we need to be very careful with correlations, as many things can be correlated. However, a correlation does not mean one thing causes the other. For example, eating ice cream and sunburn are strongly correlated, but neither causes the other - instead both are caused by sunny weather. I am also a bit suspicious that the healthy population seem to have quite a lot of intolerances as well, why should this be the case?

The researchers in the paper used IgG antibody testing to analyse food intolerances. IgG antibodies have not been shown to reliably assess food intolerances (there are several scientific publications showing this). IgG antibodies can rise when you ingest a food, so for example if you have a large portion of dairy, your IgG levels can rise as a natural result of eating it. IgG is a 'memory' antibody, that indicates an exposure to a food, and could actually pinpoint a tolerance to the food. So restricting your diet on the basis of an IgG test could mean, that you restrict foods that you can actually tolerate! For that reason, many official bodies such as the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology and the BDA (Association of British Dieticians) do not recommend food sensitivity testing based on IgG.

I have included a few publications and links below.

sciencebasedmedicine.org/ig...

healthline.com/health/food-...

bda.uk.com/resource/food-al...

aaaai.org/tools-for-the-pub...

[helvella Administrator in reply to Tina_Maria]

Yes - very important to view through its limitations.

Yes - a lot of the healthy population had intolerances - but at a distinctly lower rate.

IgG is an awkward one. If it is purely a 'memory' antibody, what could explain the results reported?

[Tina_Maria in reply to helvella]

The results seem a bit strange to me, especially the high rating for bok choi in the control group. However, if you think about it, bok choi is a staple food in china and consumed very frequently - so if people in the control group have eaten it in abundance before the test, their IgG results could explain this, as it reflects the exposure to a given food.

Similarly, the paper says no intolerance (IgG positive) was seen for turkey meat. Turkey meat is rarely eaten in China, as 60% of the meat consumed is pork. So if hardly any in the hashimoto's or the control group have eaten turkey, it would of course not raise IgG levels. Similarly with strawberries, as it is a seasonal food - if no one ate it in that time period, or if it was not available, IgG levels would not have been sufficiently raised in either group.

Given that 92% of the Chinese population are lactose intolerant, I would have thought that milk intolerance would be prevalent in both groups. This is what makes me doubt most in the IgG analysis - if the vast majority of people in China (hashi's and healthy people) are lactose intolerant, surely this should be reflected in both groups? Which strangely is not. And the only explanation could be that the hashimoto's group seem to have consumed more milk in the run up to the test (exposure), where as the control group has not, hence the differences in IgG results. There was also no information given, if people in the study consumed a 'normal' diet, or if some people did not eat specific food items from the outset, as this could have influenced their results as well, as they would eat more of one particular food and less of another, so their exposure would have been different.

Food studies and food sensitivities are notoriously difficult to analyse, characterise and explain and there are many cofounding factors that can influence the results.

[crimple]

helvella thanks for posting, I was diagnosed with intolerances to wheat, chicken and eggs in 1999 after following a strict elimination diet as directed by and NHS allergy consultant. I saw him privately after a number of trips to GP complaining of fatigue and weight gain. and suspicions about bread and pasta!!

The elimination diet is not easy, you have a very limited list of food you are allowed to eat and must stick to the regime for 4 weeks. Then each day thereafter introduce one new food at breakfast time and note any change in weight and heart rate etc. Then went back to see consultant who checked my readings and gave the diagnosis, wheat, chicken and egg intolerant. I lost quite a lot of weight in spite of no restriction on quantities of food allowed.

I think it is very important that people understand the difference between a "diet to lose weight" and eating healthily to avoid intolerances and maximise gut health. Too often "diet" means calorie watching.

When I received my hypothyroid diagnosis in 2007 I knew nothing about the effects of Gluten and dairy on thyroid issues. I did have high TPO's which are now within range. Thanks to joining this site in 2012 I quickly learned how to improve my "diet" for my thyroid health. I still cannot tolerate eggs or gluten and dairy wise I am OK with "normal" hard cheese, butter and natural yoghurt but avoid milk and cream unless lacto free. Needless to say, I rarely get a pudding when we go out to eat. I stick with a starter and main course.

It is much easier to be GF these days, eggs are everywhere though, but there are alternatives like chia seed and chickpea water which whips up very nicely to make meringues!

[buddy99]

Thank you, Helvella. You always share the most interesting finds. So much to know, so little brain space. Only speaking of myself, of course.

[Kimbriel]

But this is a chicken-egg thing. Hypo causes low stomach acid which impairs digestion... and most doctors don't understand how to properly treat Hypo, so most people never get treated for their Hypo...

[connyankee]

What if it's due to the amount of time the food remains in our digestive system since we produce less stomach acid than when we were healthy (haha--I was born with it!) and younger.

If we digested faster by taking an HCL supplement, then the food would have less reaction time in our system. Just a thought from a cookie--pizza--ice-cream--eating--66--yr--old Hypo gal.

[TiggerMe Ambassador in reply to connyankee]

Interesting that you say this, I certainly find that foods fall into different camps, certain foods like dairy and nightshades feel like a form of poisoning whereas red meat causes more of an IBS issue for me so like you say more of a digestive issue than an actual intolerance

[radd]

helvella,

It makes sense as it’s known the uncontrolled chronic inflammation created by autoimmune disease creates further inflammatory responses. Hence, why the whole ethos of functional medicine is to calm the immune response.