8 Common Food Mistakes That Could Be Harming Your Thyroid: A Doctor Explains

Healthy metabolism, energy, hormone balance, and mental focus are among the benefits of a healthy functioning thyroid gland—and what you need to bring your best and happiest self to the world. In fact, your thyroid—a butterfly-shaped organ in the front of your neck—has a lot of say in everything from your weight to your fertility to your mood to your mental concentration and memory.

Your thyroid's job is to regulate how much energy you spend—or save. It does this with messages it receives from your brain, which keeps tab on how much energy you're taking in from your food, compared to how much you need and how much you're spending. When you're on the side of low "funds" because you've been eating a super-low- or no-carb diet, or you've been skipping meals because you're busy or restricting, your brain tells your thyroid to slow down, forcing you to save rather than spend energy. Your body complies and you not only get more tired, but you gain weight and store any available energy as unhealthy forms of cholesterol.

While not everyone is gluten intolerant, women with celiac disease are more likely to develop Hashimoto's because those same antibodies that get produced in celiac disease may inadvertently attack your thyroid2. Celiac disease is underdiagnosed and can cause a host of problems from anemia to depression to skin symptoms.

On one of our episodes together on The Oz Show, none other than Dr. Oz himself shared with me that he'd been overdoing the green juice and as a result he ended up with hypothyroidism. He's not the only one! Raw kale, and other veggies in the Brassicacae family, including broccoli, Napa cabbage, green and red cabbage, bok choy, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts act as "goiterogens," meaning they can slow down thyroid function and cause enlargement of the thyroid gland leading to neck swelling.

Iodine is one of the main nutrients our thyroid depends on in order to make thyroid hormone—the active stuff that does the work that the thyroid's famous for. Yet Americans are notoriously low in quite a few nutrients, iodine among these, often because we're not getting enough in our diets.

As much as I love sushi and fish, I avoid the high-mercury varieties at all costs because mercury is so hazardous to our health. One area of major impact is on your thyroid3, where it can bind and prevent the formation of thyroid hormone.

A halide is an atom with a negative charge. Bromide and fluoride are elements (yes, as in from the periodic table of elements—hello, high school or college chemistry class!) that happen to be in the same family as iodide, that same stuff your thyroid needs to make thyroid hormone. They also happen to interfere with thyroid hormone binding and are in everyday products you might be getting exposed to. Fluoride is in your toothpaste and tap water (and anything made with tap water, for example, soups, whole grain cooked in tap water, and many canned goods packed in water), and bromide is in many different processed flour products, from pizza dough and pie crusts to muffin mixes.

OK, chances are if you're reading mindbodygreen you're well beyond the days of intentionally using artificial sweeteners in your diet. But just in case they're still slipping in there now and then, or you haven't heard that they can be even more dangerous for you than sugar—here's the latest: They're hazardous to your thyroid, too. A recent study found that regular use of artificial sweeteners, aspartame (i.e., Equal, NutraSweet) or sucralose (Splenda), is correlated with Hashimoto's.

If you know you're sensitive to specific foods, especially ones that cause you to have symptoms (e.g., bloating, hives, rashes, heartburn, constipation, lethargy, etc.) after you eat them, there's a good chance they could be causing inflammation in your immune system as well as autoimmune reactions that could be triggering a red alert in your thyroid. In addition to gluten, common food triggers for those with thyroid problems can include dairy, grains, beans (especially red beans), and nuts.