Thyroid Autoimmunity’s Impact on Mitochondria

Introduction and Guest Background 0:00

Welcome back. You're watching the Restore your Mitochondrial Matrix summit. I'm your host, Laura, from Ontario. I'm bringing you experts with fresh ideas and proven methods to help you boost your energy and fix your health so you can build the life you love. And today, my special guest is Doctor Eric Olsen. Hi, Eric. Welcome to the summit. Hey, Laura. Appreciate you having me. And I'm excited to talk about mitochondria and thyroid. Me too. I love it. This is your topic. And I want to introduce you to people and hear a little bit about your story.

So you're a chiropractor. You're a clinical nutritionist. You're a certified functional medicine practitioner, and you help people recover from thyroid and autoimmune thyroid conditions. You've authored a couple of books, Natural Treatment Solutions for Hypothyroidism and Graves Disease and Hashimoto's Triggers. So welcome, welcome. I would love to know, as we get into this, why do you focus on thyroid? What's your story? Why is this your thing? Sure. Well, I dealt with graves disease. And before deal with graves these I developed hypothyroidism and I guess to tell my story.

Just shortly, I was walking around in a Sam's Club and decided to take the. You know, they have those automated blood pressure machines. And I took my blood pressure, and my blood pressure was fine, but my heart rate was elevated. And so I, you know, thought was unusual. So I took my heart rate the next few days and continued to be elevated. And also I was losing weight and other signs, but I was also detox defying and, you know, dieting. So I attributed the weight loss to that. But after putting the pieces together, I was thinking maybe hypothyroidism, but I wasn't sure.

And so I went to a doctor primary care doctor. He ran some tests and sure enough, had hypothyroidism. And shortly after that, once endocrinologist and she gave me the diagnosis of graves disease and I decided to take a natural approach with my backgrounds, even though I didn't have experience working with thyroid patients at the time. And, you know, I really didn't know much about graves disease, to be honest. But even though when I was practicing chiropractic at the time, I still when I took my credits, my continuing education credits, I would still always take nutrition courses in nutrition classes.

And I took a few functional endocrinology courses. So I knew there was hope to reverse hypothyroidism as well as other types of thyroid conditions. So again, long story short, I took a natural approach, changed my diet, focused on stress management, and took some supplements and reversed my condition, regained my health, and just decided to help other people with thyroid and autoimmune thyroid conditions. Wow. So you really took a personal experience and just decided, I'm going to be an expert in this, and I'm going to help people with it and write some books and let me become a thyroid guy.

Wow. That's incredible. Impressive. Yeah. I mean, pretty much I mean, as you know, there's so many people out there without conditions and, you know, especially when it comes to hypothyroidism, there's not a lot of practitioners that focus on hypothyroidism. So I did see it as an opportunity and especially with my experience. So so yeah, that's that's very exciting. And yeah, I've been doing this now for well over ten years.

Thyroid Hormones and Mitochondrial Function 3:28

Wow. Well, we're going to get into the connection with mitochondria. So can you explain how so there's hypothyroidism Hashimoto's low thyroid. And then we've got hypothyroidism graves disease. And can you explain how both of these impact your mitochondrial health. Sure. Do you want me to start by just talking a little bit about thyroid hormone, how thyroid hormone impacts the mitochondria. Start with whatever makes sense to you, and we'll help our viewers understand this and know that we've got clear watching.

And we also have consumers health consumers watching. So start where you think makes the most sense. Sure. Well, it's important to understand that thyroid hormone affects pretty much everything in the body. Every organ system, every cell, the heart, the gut, the liver, you know, affects fertility, ovulation, the brain and you know what? Pretty much thyroid hormones act directly on the mitochondria. So one way they affect mitochondria, they stimulate energy production within the mitochondria, which of course is important.

And then I'm sure some of the other speakers have mentioned mitochondria genesis, which is the formation of mitochondria. And thyroid hormones actually stimulate mitochondria generate says. So, you know, if you don't have enough thyroid hormone, then you're not going to have enough mitochondria and you're going to have depleted levels of ATP, which of course isn't a good thing. And then from a hypothyroid perspective. So again, too little thyroid hormone isn't a good thing. But if you have hypothyroidism again everything's revved up.

Increased metabolism. And so you're using up all this ATP. So if you have too much thyroid hormone this also can cause depleted levels of ATP in a different way. Just because again everything's sped up with hypothyroidism. So so either way it's a no win situation if it's too low or if the thyroid hormone levels are too low or too high, that can pretty much cause depleted levels of ATP. So hypothyroidism depleted ATP can't make new baby, mitochondria can't grow new ones, and hypothyroidism. You're running through your energy, and I'm assuming you're burning out your mitochondria too, because they're they just can't keep up pretty much.

And also with the hypothyroidism, the the research shows that you have increased oxidative injury, which is therefore you have an increase risk of having mitochondrial dysfunction, mitochondrial damage. But exactly, exactly what you said. All right. So now we've set the stage. We've set the baseline thyroid and mitochondria super connected super important. So let's go from here. Where do you want to go. Well I assume some of your other speakers have spoke about oxidative stress. And, you know, most, most cases of thyroid conditions are autoimmune.

So when we talk about hypothyroidism, most cases of hypothyroidism are Hashimoto's. And most cases of hypothyroidism are graves. And you know, so what these autoimmune conditions, you have oxidative stress, which, you know, I'm sure others have mentioned that there's either an excess of free radicals or a decrease of antioxidants. And so this is not good when it comes to mitochondria, but also sets the stage when it comes to autoimmune conditions. The development of autoimmune conditions, graves, Hashimoto's, as well as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis.

So you of course want to do everything from a mitochondrial standpoint to reduce oxidative stress. But it's similar when it comes to autoimmune conditions. So the question is what's causing the oxidative stress and what's, you know, what's causing the autoimmunity. Because they kind of go hand in hand. So so really I guess the next direction is maybe talk about some of the common causes, some of the common triggers of thyroid autoimmunity, both graves and Hashimoto's. Yep. Let's do it. Let's go there.

Because I know you are an absolute expert in this. So why is this happening to people? All right. Sure. So there's a number of different reasons. One of course, we live in a toxic world. And, you know, environmental all these environmental chemicals cause a lot of a lot of oxidative stress. Heavy metals such as mercury, cadmium, arsenic. And there is infections, viruses including Epstein-Barr, cytomegalovirus, the recent virus we've been dealing with over the last few years. You know, stress is also a trigger.

You know, I guess I should backtrack. There's one talk about autoimmunity. There's four main form, four categories of triggers that I discuss. And so I mentioned chemicals. So those are you know that's one category. Infections would be a second category. And again viruses could be Lyme disease. And 20,000 2018 I was diagnosed with chronic Lyme. So 2008 was grave ten years later chronic Lyme disease. So both of those can cause oxidative stress and then stress itself can cause oxidative stress. Stress can cause the depletion of nutrients, which is one factor in development of oxidative stress.

Also can cause dysregulation of the immune system.

Autoimmunity, Oxidative Stress, and Common Triggers 8:51

And then food. You know, food is another category of trigger. And, you know, again, if you're eating unhealthy foods, you know, that potentially could cause oxidative stress. But again, you're also dealing with nutrients, efficiencies if you're not eating healthy, which can play a role in not having optimal mitochondrial health. So you know, so again you want to try to find and remove those triggers with really any autoimmune condition. Of course the focus here is on graves and Hashimoto's. But really again it doesn't make a difference what autoimmune condition you want to try to find or remove triggers.

Okay. Great. So we got our four categories now. Can you talk a little bit about I know I want to switch gears just a tiny bit and I want to talk about medications and meds. Because, you know, there's, there's that kind of the Western way of handling thyroid and more the functional medicine way of handling thyroid. So, what does I read? Meds due to mitochondrial health. What's your preferred method of supporting thyroid health? Sure. So from a from a hypothyroid standpoint, there's no evidence I'm aware of that thyroid hormone replacement causes any problems of mitochondria of anything.

It's opposite. We mentioned the importance of thyroid hormone. So I just want to bring that up before talking about the medications that could potentially be harmful to the mitochondria. A lot of people are taking thyroid hormones, so I don't want people to get concerned whether they're taking levothyroxine or if they're taking, desiccated thyroid such as nature, thyroid or armor. So again, those are perfectly fine. And if anything, it's if someone's deficient in thyroid hormone, it may be important to take that hormone that, for the reasons we mentioned earlier.

So when it comes to the medications for hypothyroidism, that's where you can run into trouble, because according to the research. So what what anti thyroid medication is commonly given to people with hypothyroidism, them is all the most common, at least in the United States. Khabib is all converts and some of them as well. Now choose in some other countries. And then there's rp2, which is and that's common, but sometimes is given. And when people take the medication, something I commonly see in my practice when doing a conference and metabolic panel is we see the levels of liver enzymes increase.

So elevated liver enzymes. And so according to the research it shows that the medication what it's actually doing or at least one of the things that's doing it, there's unfortunately a lot of other it has a lot of other negative side effects. But one thing it's doing is or potentially can do is damage the mitochondria and the hepatocytes and the hepatocytes. So the liver cells. So if you and it doesn't mean that everything comes down to risk versus benefit. So I'm not suggesting that there's not a time and place for antithrombin action, but especially if you're having elevated liver enzymes.

That's something to keep in mind. That means it's not only damaging the cells of the liver, but the mitochondria within the cells. So that's so that's one thing I wanted to bring up. And, and I could talk about my preferred method of treatment for hypothyroidism, but I also want to bring up beta blockers. I'm not sure if anybody else in the summit brought up beta blockers, but certain beta blockers can decrease CoQ10, coenzyme Q10, which I'm sure others have brought up, is a powerful antioxidant that plays a role in reducing oxidative stress and also activating mitochondria.

So if you are taking beta blockers, something like propranolol, which is commonly given to people with hypothyroidism and so that yeah, I mean it'll help with the symptoms but also likely to decrease levels of CoQ10. So there's a few different things people could do. So like I said, everything comes down to risk versus benefits. If someone absolutely needs to take, let's say a beta blocker, then they probably want to take CoQ10, supplement CoQ10. If they absolutely need to take their medication, they at the very least wants a monitor the liver enzymes and make sure those liver enzymes aren't getting elevated.

And usually the endocrinologist who is prescribing the answer thyroid medication. Usually they will keep track of this. Sometimes they don't. And so if the and if the liver enzymes are elevated, oftentimes they'll tell the person to stop taking ends up their medication. But if for any reason the person continues to take it to thyroid medication, you know, they could take things to help protect the liver, such as milk thistle, or do things to increase glutathione, which is the master antioxidant in the body, or, you know, take by taking NAC and Acetylcysteine or liposomal glutathione down.

But then so when I dealt with graves disease, I chose not to take anti-air medication and to be upfront at that time. This was again, 2008 when I was diagnosed.

Thyroid Medications and Mitochondrial Considerations 13:58

I had no idea that no idea that would affect, the mitochondria, the mitochondria within the liver cells. I just knew that from what I read, that, you know, it does put a lot of stress on the body. And, you know, side effects are are common. And so I chose to take an herbal approach. And what I took was an herb called Buga weed, which is an herbal anti thyroid properties. And it worked really well for myself. And and it works for a lot of my patients. I can't say it works 100% at a time. And that's where sometimes we have to weigh the risk versus benefits when it comes to, you know, taking antiviral medication.

And, and one more thing I'll say with, beta blockers, again, if someone needs to take a beta blocker, take CoQ10. But I also took an additional bugle. We took something called motherboard and motherboard is also an herb. And so I think of it as a natural beta blocker. And, you know, so that's another option. So I took bugle weed and motherboard where some people took take what some people would hypothyroid. And we'll take anti-air medications such as with them as well and a beta blocker. So there are alternatives.

And I'm not suggesting if anybody's taking the medication I'm not saying stop taking the answer up our medication and or the beta blocker and take the buccal weed and the motherboard. I would, I would say is work with a health care practitioner. If you're thinking about doing that because you definitely you know it really with any condition, you don't want to stop abruptly taking your medication, but especially with hypothyroidism, because you could go into a thyroid storm, you could, you know, develop an arrhythmia.

So definitely want to be cautious. Yes, definitely. Our goal here is to tell you about options that are available, to have you start thinking about maybe having a second opinion or consult with another practitioner like Eric, and we'll make sure you know how to get a hold of Eric before we end this interview. But yeah, definitely. I echo that if you're watching and thinking you want to stop your prescriptions, don't do that right now. Don't do that without support with a practitioner. Yeah. So thank you, Eric.

Anything else you want to say on medications for thyroid and medication alternatives for thyroid? Before we shift into talking about another topic now as I mentioned. So again, what thyroid hormone? Well, for those who are Hashimoto's hypothyroidism need thyroid hormone. You know, that's that's safe, which is good because there's really no herbal replacement for thyroid hormone, which people do ask me frequently, can I stop, take my thyroid hormone and take something else? There are gland, but they also the a lot of the you pretty much need thyroid hormone if you're deficient.

And then when it comes to again the the medication like I said if it's risk versus benefits. So just if you need to take the meds that's fine. And there's other things besides buccal weed. I should mention l-carnitine taken, which also could support mitochondria to, l-carnitine in higher doses could actually there's some research and I've seen it where patients where it has anti thyroid properties. So taking in the research shows 2000 to 4000mg per day of l-carnitine can help with lowering thyroid hormone levels.

So that's an alternative to bugle weed. So there's there's other alternatives. Again I think it's best you know as large as said. And I said you know, just if you have hypothyroidism and if you're taking a medication and then you're not sure, you know, if you're thinking, well, maybe I would, you know, I would prefer taking the herbs or, you know, l-carnitine or something else. Again, work with someone else. This way they can go over the different options. And then if you're going to make that transition, you could do it in a wise man or not.

Just stop one and start the other. Yeah. Thank you. And so I think we covered medications. What I want to really. You mean you've written entire books about this? So I want to I want you to just dump your brain out here and help us and help our viewers know the steps that you can take to restore the health of your thyroid and your immune system. So you can really optimize all your systems because it's all connected immune, thyroid, mitochondria, every bit of it. So what would you take us through in terms of steps to support?

Sure. So I know we just spoke about medication, but one thing I want to say, the first step for those what. Well, I was gonna say what hypothyroidism. But you want the thing. You want to be safe. So before addressing the cause, make sure you do something to be safe. And even what what? Hashimoto's. If you have really low thyroid hormone levels, you might need to take thyroid hormone replacement. So though that's not addressed in the course, but I did want to bring that up one more time. Just, you know, to be safe.

And as far as addressing the cause of the problem. So with autoimmunity, you have the triad of autoimmunity, the three legged stool. I'm sure you've heard of that. So you know what? One of the components is a genetic predisposition, which you can't do anything about. But the good news is, again, you can find and remove the triggers, which is the second component. And then there's an increase in intestinal permeability, which is the medical term for a leaky gut, which is a third component. So I would say when it comes to triggers, probably the easiest well I won't say easiest thing to do, but the probably the first thing I would say is diet, because everybody could at least do that on their own.

You know, when it comes to, you know, like doing testing, that's another option. And we could talk about that. But everybody should be eating a clean, healthy, anti-inflammatory diet. And there's different perspectives when it comes to diet. Some will say I'm sure some during the some of what mentioned may maybe ketogenic and then what autoimmune. There's autoimmune paleo diet I mean there's different sides. But either way whatever diet, make sure you eat whole healthy foods and avoid unhealthy oils, refined foods and sugars.

So that's one thing. And I would say after being safe with this, you know, symptom management, that would be I would say number two to, to, you know, clean up your diet and then stress, you know, we just live in a world of constant stressors and it's definitely not getting any better. You know, lately. And so doing things to improve stress handling, I would say the number one thing we can't get rid of the stressors. I mean, sometimes we can, but realistically we're going to be dealing with stress, on a consistent basis.

So the best thing we could do, in my opinion, is to block out time on a regular basis for stress management. So what I tell my patients is block out, start out with if you're not doing anything currently from a stress management perspective, start with five minutes per day. And the reason I say that is because I'll get people who are maybe doing yoga for 20 30 minutes, but they're only doing it a couple times per week. But I really think you need to do it every day. And I mentioned five minutes just because I want people to get into the routine of stress handling.

So everybody I mean, let's put it this way, if you can't find five minutes to block out time for stress, you probably need it more than any other person. So, you know those. Yeah, that's that's really the way it works. Those who don't have the time need it the most. So. But start with five minutes, pick whatever you would prefer to do. And if you don't know what you would prefer to do, just start with some deep breathing. But again, you could do meditation. Could do deep, you could do, yoga. Tai chi.

So five minutes and then once you in the routine, then you could gradually increase the duration of sleep, more of stress management and, speaking of sleep.

Restoring Thyroid Health Through Diet, Stress, and Gut Healing 21:38

So that was what I was going to go to next. So I would say diet, stress management and sleep now, sleep sometimes is a catch 22 because of course there are a lot of people who intentional really neglect their sleep. But there are also people who would love to get quality sleep, but they just can't get sleep. And sometimes addressing the Dei component and the stress management will help greatly with sleep. But sometimes you need to dig deeper. There could be other factors when it comes to sleep, so that's where maybe doing some adrenal testing.

Or again, it could be even a hit, an infection. I mean, there's a lot of issues, that could affect sleep in some people emfs electromagnetic fields. So, so either way, diet, stress management, sleep and then so so these are the basics, you know, then you might need to and my experience with patients I do some testing with patients and and one other thing you can do which maybe would be followed sleep is doing. And we could argue maybe number one would be reducing toxic load. But even like cleaning up your diet is is helping with that.

And you know, there are other ways like sauna. You know, I love sauna therapy, sweating out the toxins. But you know, when finding triggers or moving triggers, I do like to do some testing. And as far as the types of tests, it does depend on the person. I do like adrenal testing, whether it's salivary testing or dried urine testing using like the Dutch test. Some people, I'll recommend a comprehensive stool panel and, to see if there's any, not only just biopsies and balances and a gut flora, but any pathogens and parasites, any, you know, H.

Pylori. So really, you know, and that gets into the infections, the gut infections and, you know, so it takes some detective work when it comes to finding the triggers. I mean, in some cases people will eliminate gluten and that that'll be enough, but that's rare. I think that's just in most cases, a piece of the puzzle. And, and so finding removing triggers and then doing things to heal the gut. And when it comes to healing the gut, you know, I'm sure you're familiar. I know you're familiar with the five hour protocol.

And so I won't get into great detail about that, but, unless of you want me to. But I'll say the the one thing is to remove the factor that supports in a leaky gut, one of the most important things, if not the most important thing. Let's get into fiber because we have some time and I can drop that word. And there's probably some people watching going, well, what does five hour mean? Yeah. So let's talk about it, okay? Okay. I wasn't sure if you wanted to go go deep into that, but yeah, definitely you could do that. So five hour protocol.

So what relation to gut healing you have the first hour is remove, the second is repair, the third is re inoculate. Oh. I'm sorry. The first. What wrong order. So first is remove. Second is replace third is re inoculate fourth or repair fifth is rebalance. And and really I mean you could do all five at the same time. But arguably the most important factor is that first are remove, at least in my opinion. I mean they're all important. But if I have a lot of patients who, you know, they've searched the internet or they they're watching summits like this and they'll hear about, you know, like probiotics and digestive enzymes, and they'll be drinking bone broth and, you know, doing all these things for re inoculation and gut healing, you know, gut repair.

But they might not be doing things to eliminate the factor that's causing the, the increase in intestinal intestinal permeability or leaky gut. Now, of course, diet does play a big role. So a lot of people do know, okay, I'm going to eliminate gluten and maybe I'll eliminate dairy. But there could be other factors from a diet perspective like corn. And then there could be gut infections, you know. So they so it's not all about diet. So you might need to I mean again start with diet. And you might just know that you might need to dig deeper.

There is also glyphosate which we can't completely get rid of. But that also disrupts the gut microbiome. And so you want to minimize your exposure to that. And when we talk about replace that's replacing components such as digestive enzymes. A lot of people have low stomach acid. So you might have to take betaine HDL or drink some apple cider vinegar to try to stimulate your own body's production of stomach acid or bitter herbs. And one or even fiber falls under that tap. That category of remove and then re inoculate probiotics, prebiotics.

Of course, you want to try to do as much as you can through diet. You know, nothing wrong with taking probiotics. I commonly recommend prebiotics and probiotics as well, but I think you want to do both. If you're you know, if you can tolerate fermented foods, then I would recommend things like sauerkraut, kimchi, even kombucha and gut healing. So gut repair is the fourth are. And so that's where again taking like or drinking let's say bone broth or if you're, you know, if you're a vegetarian, maybe cabbage juice or, you know, taking l glutamine and there's, the Molson such as a GL licorice slippery slope or yellow marshmallow root.

And, and again, it's not like you need to take all these, but, you know, so again, when I dealt with graves disease, honestly, there wasn't the bone broth craze that was here now. And not that it's a craze. I mean, it does help. And it's much, you know, nutrient dense, does help with gut healing. But back then, I didn't take bone broth just because it wasn't brought up to me. And I didn't see it. So and I was able to to heal. So I wouldn't say it's absolutely essential to drink bone broth. But again, if you're if you're willing to drink bone broth, whether you make it yourself or purchase it or if you purchase it organic, grass fed, preferably and and then the fifth is rebalance or rebalance things like again stress management.

Vagus nerve the health of the vagus nerve. So just doing things you know, like, just activate vagus nerve like hot and cold showers, which I personally do. I can't say I love the cold showers, but I still still do them. And, vigorous gargling, even coffee enemas, according to some, that also will help with the parasympathetic nervous system. So, so really but so to summarize, those five are as if you incorporate the five hours, you know, those are really the key, the you know, that's the key to, healing the gut.

Yeah. Which is so vital to thyroid. And it's vital to mitochondria health as well. It's vital to support your immune system. And this is why you're going to hear, the listeners are going to hear so many practitioners coming on here talking about the importance of gut health. So I'm glad that we had the opportunity to break that down. Eric. Thank you. That was beautiful. Perfectly done. Anything else about your steps to improve health and prevent and treat autoimmune thyroid conditions? Well, you know, one thing I didn't mention is nutrients efficiencies.

I might have mentioned it briefly. I know I mentioned CoQ10, but just, you know, nutrients are important when it comes to mitochondria, of course. And nutrients are also important when it comes to thyroid health as well as thyroid autoimmunity. And one I wanted to bring up is selenium. So and the reason I bring up selenium is when it comes to thyroid autoimmunity. There are studies which show that selenium could lower antibodies or at least play a role in, in the decrease in antibodies such as thyroid peroxidase antibodies is actually a few studies, but the TPO antibodies and then thyroid eye disease, which is associated with graves disease.

There are some studies that show that selenium can benefit people with thyroid disease. But then also I came across some research that showed that selenium also plays an important role in mitochondrial function. It helps to reduce oxidative stress, which really shouldn't be a surprise because selenium is a cofactor for good of thiamin, which again is the master antioxidant. But then also. So that's not a surprise, but I didn't realize that it stimulates mitochondrial biogenesis. So I didn't I don't know if you know that, but I, I didn't know that.

And so I was looking at the research. So so that's that's pretty cool. And so yeah, so nutrient deficiencies including selenium and, and really, you know, just, you know, so I would say for giving like steps people can take, you know, I mentioned, you know, pretty much mentioned that the main ones addressing nutrients, efficiencies, again, minimize exposure to environmental chemicals, doing things to reduce your toxic load. You know, just, to summarize, if you're taking, again, a beta blocker supplement of CoQ10, I mean, the big thing, though, is, you know, of course, we're talking about thyroid.

So balancing the thyroid hormone levels is just, you know, as I mentioned, if you have low or high normal,

Nutrients, Hope, and How to Connect with Dr. Olsen 30:48

if you have low levels or high levels of thyroid hormone, it wreaked havoc on your body and on your mitochondria. So so again, we're talking about a lot of this discussion is on autoimmunity. Because again most cases of hypothyroidism are Hashimoto's and most hyper are graves. And so it's important to have a healthy immune system. And by by addressing that ultimately it should lower the thyroid hormone levels by addressing the cause of the problem. But again, initially we might need to do things to balance everything out.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Eric. Any last words for our audience before we wrap up? This has been an incredible talk. Words of hope are always good to what would you say? Yeah, there's definitely hope. I mean, if you have, Graves or Hashimoto's or even a non autoimmune condition, there's definitely hope. And, you know, I did mention earlier, I want one more thing I want to add is that I mentioned I reverse my condition. Now when I say reverse, it's, you know, I think of it as like a permanent remission.

I don't like to use the word cure because with autoimmune there is a genetic predisposition. So I think if you have Graves or Hashimoto's, that's my goal is remission. So that's that should be your goal too. If someone is watching this and they have graves Hashimoto's, there definitely is hope. So if your doctor is saying if you have graves, let's say and they're pressuring the person to get radioactive iodine or thyroid surgery, which unfortunately is common when it comes to endocrinologist. You know, again, it's not easy and it's not easy if you have Hashimoto's, you know, Hashimoto's, the endocrinologist will typically give thyroid hormone and that's it.

They'll say that's you know, that's the solution for Hashimoto's. But you need to address that autoimmune components. And as we're discussing here, there's definitely overlap between the autoimmune and the mitochondria. And you know if you have healthy mitochondria and you address all those other areas I mentioned. Again, not easy to do, but definitely doable. And, you know, just take it one step at a time. If anything, just focus on a diet and lifestyle and consider maybe working with a functional medicine practitioner.

Excellent. Thank you for dropping all the pearls, Eric. Thank you for the work that you do in the world. We need people like you who specialize in this, and you give hope that you don't have to always have a thyroid surgery, and you don't always have to have the prescription medicines that can, ultimately cause other problems. So tell us how we can get in touch with you, because I'm sure there's people who are really wanting that at this point. How do we find you? Yeah. So my main website is Natural Endocrine solutions.com.

And also you could, visit my podcast. So I have another website for that save My thyroid.com which is a little bit easier to to remember. Visit my thyroid.com click on podcast. And then that's probably the best way. And there's a lot of information for both the and the the the podcast focuses a lot on hypothyroidism and graves disease. But most of the interviews will benefit people with both Graves and Hashimoto's. Excellent. Thank you, Eric, so much and really appreciate your time and your expertise and everything you're putting out there in the world.

You are a dedicated man to this topic. Well, thank you. Thank you so much, Laura. I appreciate you, inviting me to the summit. Yeah. You take good care, Eric. Bye now. Thank you.