Latest / Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40 / THYROID Markers Your Doctor Ignores That Stall Metabolism and Fat Loss (Eric Osansky) | Ep 412

Transcript

THYROID Markers Your Doctor Ignores That Stall Metabolism and Fat Loss (Eric Osansky) | Ep 412 · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:01
  Philip Pape: Let's say your metabolism has slowed to a crawl, and despite training hard and eating right, your body composition won't budge.
• 0:08
  Philip Pape: Maybe you suspect your thyroid.
• 0:10
  Philip Pape: But every doctor you see runs basic labs, tells you everything's normal, and sends you away with advice to just eat less and exercise more.
• 0:18
  Philip Pape: Meanwhile, you're exhausted, your recovery is shot, and you can't figure out why lifting weights and tracking isn't working anymore.
• 0:25
  Philip Pape: My guest today reveals why standard thyroid testing misses the real problems blocking your fat loss and muscle gain, which markers matter for people who lift weights, and how autoimmune thyroid conditions like Hachimoto's develop so that you can protect and optimize your thyroid to support your metabolism and fat loss goals.
• 0:46
  Philip Pape: Welcome to Wits and Weights, the show that helps you build a strong, healthy physique using evidence, engineering, and efficiency.
• 0:58
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, Philip Pape, and today we're going to explore why thyroid dysfunction could be a hidden barrier preventing you from building muscle and losing fat despite doing all the right things.
• 1:09
  Philip Pape: My guest today is Dr.
• 1:10
  Philip Pape: Eric Ostansky, a functional medicine practitioner who specializes in thyroid health, particularly hyperthyroidism, graves disease, and autoimmune conditions like Hachimoto's.
• 1:20
  Philip Pape: After being diagnosed himself with Graves disease in 2008, Dr.
• 1:24
  Philip Pape: Ostanski achieved remission through natural protocols and has since focused his practice on helping people address root causes.
• 1:32
  Philip Pape: We love root causes.
• 1:33
  Philip Pape: Those are important.
• 1:34
  Philip Pape: The root causes of thyroid dysfunction rather than just managing symptoms with things like medication or even irreversible treatments.
• 1:42
  Philip Pape: He's the author of several books on thyroid health and hosts the Save My Thyroid podcast.
• 1:48
  Philip Pape: Go follow that podcast if you're into that or if you have thyroid condition and want to learn, please follow Save My Thyroid.
• 1:55
  Philip Pape: Because your thyroid, very important, it controls a lot of things: your metabolic rate, your energy production, your recovery, how your body responds to things like strength training.
• 2:04
  Philip Pape: And for those of us focused on building muscle, losing fat, optimizing performance, thyroid health often gets overlooked until it becomes a serious problem and then it stalls your progress.
• 2:15
  Philip Pape: So today, you're going to learn how thyroid dysfunction shows up differently in people who, for example, train like we do, which lab markers might matter beyond the basic TSH testing, how training stress and lifestyle factors can trigger autoimmune thyroid problems, and some practical tips, as always, that you can do to protect and optimize your thyroid while still pursuing all of these fun goals we have for body composition and health.
• 2:39
  Philip Pape: Eric, glad to have you on Wits and Weights.
• 2:41
  Philip Pape: Good to see you again and welcome to the show.
• 2:43
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, thanks so much, Philip.
• 2:44
  Eric Osansky: Really excited to have this conversation.
• 2:46
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, definitely check out my podcast because you're also on the podcast.
• 2:50
  Eric Osansky: So people need to listen to me interviewing you.
• 2:53
  Philip Pape: There you go.
• 2:54
  Philip Pape: I let you make the plug because if it comes up, it comes up.
• 2:57
  Philip Pape: So definitely check that out.
• 2:59
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 3:00
  Philip Pape: So I've been having a lot.
• 3:01
  Philip Pape: Every time I have an expert on like you these days, these days, as in the last few months, I really have started off with trying to define some basic things.
• 3:07
  Philip Pape: Because I think we gloss over that sometimes in these conversations.
• 3:10
  Philip Pape: Not you, but the listeners, like, hey, I haven't heard a thyroid expert in a while.
• 3:14
  Philip Pape: What's going on with a thyroid?
• 3:16
  Philip Pape: Exactly what is it?
• 3:17
  Philip Pape: What is that gland?
• 3:18
  Philip Pape: Um, they might not even know it's a gland.
• 3:20
  Philip Pape: What does it do?
• 3:21
  Philip Pape: Oh, it produces hormones.
• 3:22
  Philip Pape: What hormones?
• 3:23
  Philip Pape: Just so we have a basic understanding of biology as really important foundation before we dive into dysfunction and optimization.
• 3:30
  Philip Pape: So lay it on us, 30,000-foot level, describe the thyroid gland and everything about it.
• 3:36
  Eric Osansky: Yeah.
• 3:36
  Eric Osansky: So thyroid gland is a butterfly-shaped gland in the in the front of the neck.
• 3:42
  Eric Osansky: And uh it, as you mentioned, it's responsible for the production of different thyroid hormones.
• 3:48
  Eric Osansky: The most well-known T4 and T3.
• 3:51
  Eric Osansky: There are other T1, T2.
• 3:54
  Eric Osansky: We still can't test for those in the blood, uh, even though there are like T2 supplements that some recommends uh for like weight loss.
• 4:03
  Eric Osansky: And but yeah, so the thyroid gland produces mostly T4 or thyroxin, uh, approximately 90%, and then approximately 10% T3.
• 4:14
  Eric Osansky: Uh so most of the T3 is actually produced by the conversion of T4 into T3.
• 4:20
  Eric Osansky: And T3 is the active form of thyroid hormone that actually binds to the receptors.
• 4:25
  Eric Osansky: And then you actually have a pituitary hormone called TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone.
• 4:31
  Eric Osansky: So again, that's accreted by the pituitary gland, and um, and that communicates, that stimulates the thyroid gland when uh to produce thyroid hormone, or in the case of hyperthyroidism, the opposite, the pituitary gland will slow down the production of TSH because you have too much thyroid hormone.
• 4:48
  Eric Osansky: So, yeah, and then you know, what we could talk, I guess, a little bit later about antibodies and autoimmunity.
• 4:55
  Eric Osansky: Um, but as far as the actual thyroid, um, yeah, as you mentioned, I mean the thyroid thyroid hormone, there are thyroid hormone receptors um pretty much everywhere, just about every cell and tissue in the body.
• 5:07
  Eric Osansky: So if you have too much or too little, that's not a good thing.
• 5:12
  Eric Osansky: And um, yeah, it could, you know, obviously the focus here is going to be more on um, you know, weight loss, muscle mass, but yeah, like cholesterol, just to give an example.
• 5:21
  Eric Osansky: Like uh if you have high cholesterol on a blood test, not to say it's always related to the thyroid, but if you have low thyroid, that also plays a role in cholesterol metabolism.
• 5:31
  Eric Osansky: And unfortunately, a lot of medical doctors will just resort to statins to lower the cholesterol, but it it's possible it could be thyroid, it could be a low thyroid.
• 5:42
  Eric Osansky: So, and um, you know, it could affect bone density, of course, affects the the heart.
• 5:46
  Eric Osansky: I mean, again, you name it thyroid, thyroid hormone definitely could um play a role in controlling.
• 5:53
  Philip Pape: Yeah, and and it's just coincidentally in kind of the center of the body, too, which you know gives you this visual of how connected it is to everything.
• 6:00
  Philip Pape: Uh just to nerd out for a second, like in the evolution of our species, you know, like what why would the thyroid evolve?
• 6:07
  Philip Pape: Like, why do we really have it?
• 6:08
  Philip Pape: That I it's a fundamental question.
• 6:09
  Philip Pape: What's important about the thyroid?
• 6:11
  Philip Pape: Because we talk so much about it being too high or too low and affecting these things, but like, why do we even have it?
• 6:16
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, I mean, it's a good question.
• 6:17
  Eric Osansky: Um, nobody actually asked me that specific question as far as why we we have the thyroid.
• 6:22
  Philip Pape: That's called going off script right there.
• 6:25
  Eric Osansky: But anyway, it's a good question.
• 6:27
  Eric Osansky: But um, I mean, the pituitary gland actually is the master gland.
• 6:31
  Eric Osansky: So I will say this like some people call the thyroid gland the master gland, but the pituitary gland controls the thyroid, controls the you know, the adrenals, controls the sex, like communicates with the sex hormones.
• 6:42
  Eric Osansky: But again, like uh, you know, the thyroid gland, we all the pretty much every cell tissue in the body needs the thyroid hormone.
• 6:51
  Eric Osansky: And and again, it you know, it's it gets even deeper, like down to cellular level.
• 6:57
  Eric Osansky: But you know, I mean, metabolism is huge, of course.
• 7:00
  Eric Osansky: There are times when we need, you know, to slow down our metabolism.
• 7:04
  Eric Osansky: There are times um in a nutshell when we need to you know increase to to speed up our metabolism.
• 7:10
  Eric Osansky: So I guess trying to make it as as basic as as possible, um, as far as uh, you know, the why we have like evolutionary wise, you know, why we have a thyroid gland.
• 7:20
  Philip Pape: It's um so so like homeostate.
• 7:22
  Philip Pape: It sounds like it's a homeostatic regulator, right?
• 7:24
  Eric Osansky: Kind of, yeah, exactly.
• 7:26
  Eric Osansky: So like balance, yeah.
• 7:28
  Philip Pape: Yeah, keeps you in the zone.
• 7:29
  Philip Pape: Okay, no, that's good.
• 7:30
  Philip Pape: All right, now you you personally had, I I alluded to in the intro, had Graves disease yourself.
• 7:35
  Philip Pape: Definitely would love you to explain what that is, um, because there are definitely a lot of autoimmune conditions across the spectrum, even beyond thyroid, that are there's misinformation about, I suppose.
• 7:44
  Philip Pape: But um, when you what is that?
• 7:47
  Philip Pape: What happened with you and your metabolism and your you know physical health, fitness, all of that, and how did that connect to uh systematic things that you then started exploring and going down the rabbit hole with thyroid health?
• 8:01
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, so graves disease is um like Hashimoto's, Hashimoto's is the most common, more of the common thyroid condition, and it's autoimmune.
• 8:11
  Eric Osansky: So graves also autoimmune and um involves hyperthyroidism.
• 8:16
  Eric Osansky: And I mean, I don't so you want do you want me to talk about my story, like how I was diagnosed with graves or just kind of what it is, like what yeah, a little bit of what it is, but I've absolutely want to understand how it affected you, you know, like yeah.
• 8:27
  Eric Osansky: I mean, because actually what prior to being diagnosed, I was trying to lose weight.
• 8:33
  Eric Osansky: I was uh, you know, 182 pounds, usually like to be like between 165 and 170.
• 8:38
  Eric Osansky: And so I was dieting, I was detoxifying, I was over-training.
• 8:44
  Eric Osansky: I didn't really, I should have known better, but I wasn't really paying attention and listened to my body.
• 8:49
  Eric Osansky: And so I was losing weight.
• 8:51
  Eric Osansky: And then, you know, eventually losing losing a lot of weight.
• 8:54
  Eric Osansky: Little did I know was some of it at least related to the hyperthyroidism.
• 8:58
  Eric Osansky: And then over uh eventually I was walking around in a retail store.
• 9:03
  Eric Osansky: They had one of those automated blood pressure machines.
• 9:05
  Eric Osansky: I took my blood pressure, which was normal, but my resting heart rate was a little bit high, it was 90 beats per minute.
• 9:11
  Eric Osansky: And I was just thinking, well, maybe it's because I'm just walking around, but then I measured my heart rate the next few days, and it was anywhere between 90 and 110 beats per minute.
• 9:20
  Eric Osansky: And I'm like, okay, something's wrong here.
• 9:21
  Eric Osansky: And then uh went to a primary care doctor, got diagnosed with uh with hyperthaurism initially, eventually went to an endocrinologist, got diagnosed with graves.
• 9:31
  Eric Osansky: And so, yeah, like the hyperthaurism in my case, it increased my resting heart rate, caused palpitations, uh, lost 42 pounds.
• 9:40
  Eric Osansky: So I dropped down to 140, which again um a lot less than I wanted to be.
• 9:45
  Eric Osansky: Uh, had an increased appetite uh and um increased bowel movements.
• 9:51
  Eric Osansky: Uh just uh I mean, I didn't have anxiety, but a lot of people have anxiety with the elevation and thyroid hormones.
• 9:57
  Eric Osansky: Um hair loss is common.
• 10:00
  Eric Osansky: Uh so um, so yeah, but I mean, again, the the weight loss was big.
• 10:05
  Eric Osansky: And a lot of, I mean, it's funny, it's funny and not funny, not funny, because most of the people I work with are women, and that's sometimes is the one benefit, you know, that they're like, well, at least I lost weight.
• 10:16
  Eric Osansky: And then some people don't lose weight with graves, you know, for different reasons.
• 10:20
  Eric Osansky: And when they don't lose weight, they're frustrated because it's like it's bad enough having graves, but I can't even like lose weight.
• 10:25
  Eric Osansky: One uh quote unquote benefit of it, right?
• 10:28
  Philip Pape: Yeah, I see.
• 10:29
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 10:29
  Philip Pape: Well, I mean, it it follows logically in general when we talk again, hype hyper overproduction with graves versus hypo, like Hashimoto's underproduction, where you hear there's like weight loss resistance because the thermic regulator, your metabolism is t dampened and in graves, it sounds like it could be accelerated, but that's not necessarily a great thing because then it higher heart rate, all those other things.
• 10:51
  Eric Osansky: Exactly.
• 10:51
  Philip Pape: So is that was that kind of the trigger for you to learn about this and then eventually expand your own scope of of knowledge?
• 10:57
  Philip Pape: Is that what led to why you do this today?
• 11:00
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, definitely.
• 11:01
  Eric Osansky: I mean, prior to this, I really had no experience with graves at all.
• 11:05
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, I was uh my background is a chiropractor and I was just uh practicing regular chiropractic and and just you know, just even though chiropractic goes beyond uh neck and back pain.
• 11:16
  Eric Osansky: But yeah, uh really um, but I will say for my CE credits, uh I always used to attend and even currently it's attend nutritional and functional medicine seminars rather than like chiropractic technique seminars.
• 11:28
  Eric Osansky: So when I attended some of the CE cred uh the seminars for my CE credits, I learned about like there were a few functional endocrinology seminars that focused on thyroid health.
• 11:38
  Eric Osansky: And they of course focused more on hypothyroidism Hashimoto's and um also spoke about adrenals, not just thyroid, but um, but they did talk a little bit about graves and hyperthyroidism and just um by attending those seminars, uh look back.
• 11:52
  Eric Osansky: So it wasn't it was 2008 when I was diagnosed, and it was probably just a couple of years prior to that when I attended at least the the last of those seminars, and uh, and I realized that there was hope, there was a way to address it naturally, to manage the symptoms naturally, and to uh again to address the root cause, but I didn't have any experience of that.
• 12:13
  Eric Osansky: So I was at the same time kind of skeptical, skeptical, and just was like, yeah, you know, I have nothing to lose.
• 12:19
  Eric Osansky: I mean, I don't want to just take anti-thyroid medication for a prolonged period of time.
• 12:23
  Eric Osansky: And then the other two options are radioactive iodine, which is ablating the thyroid cells, or thyroid surgery.
• 12:30
  Eric Osansky: So I decided to uh change my diet, my lifestyle, and uh not as extreme as I did prior.
• 12:37
  Eric Osansky: Um, but yeah, and then took certain supplements, did um some testing, and um, yeah, long story short, was able to uh restore my health.
• 12:45
  Eric Osansky: And yeah, and that was the driver, that was the motivator.
• 12:47
  Eric Osansky: I was like, there's so many people out there with thyroid and autoimmune thyroid conditions.
• 12:51
  Eric Osansky: And unfortunately, most of them, I mean, this isn't a bad thing, but I was gonna say most of them focus on hypothalamus Hashimoto's, but unfortunately, there's not a lot that focus on hyperthaurism in graves.
• 13:03
  Philip Pape: Got it.
• 13:03
  Philip Pape: So you mentioned a few things I want to touch on because I think people need to first know if they even have a uh concern, right?
• 13:10
  Philip Pape: And I assume it starts with symptoms and or different types of labs and blood work that we want to get into, like beyond just the typical labs into antibodies and things like that.
• 13:19
  Philip Pape: But let's just start with the fact that, for example, everyone listening, when you go into a fat loss phase, if you're in a calorie deficit, we know things like that, stress on your body, will cause changes in your hormones, including thyroid.
• 13:31
  Philip Pape: We know it drops.
• 13:32
  Philip Pape: I don't know if you know exact numbers.
• 13:33
  Philip Pape: I've seen stuff like 6% with a 500 calorie deficit is kind of an average ballpark for an average person with metabolic adaptation.
• 13:41
  Philip Pape: And so, first of all, how do we distinguish where whether somebody is just having symptoms from their lifestyle versus an actual condition?
• 13:49
  Philip Pape: And for those listening, like, do they need to do some prep work first?
• 13:53
  Philip Pape: Like, can a poor lifestyle show itself as a condition or can you diagnose a condition independent of the lifestyle?
• 14:01
  Philip Pape: Do you know what I'm saying?
• 14:02
  Eric Osansky: I mean, really, the official diagnosis is probably with tests.
• 14:05
  Eric Osansky: I mean, you could tell, like if I think back for, you know, with my symptoms, I could have put the piece like now looking back, it's like, okay, I was the symptomless.
• 14:15
  Eric Osansky: Yeah.
• 14:16
  Eric Osansky: I mean, the the the more extreme weight loss, the increased appetite.
• 14:19
  Eric Osansky: Again, that's not always related to, of course, you know, hyperthyroism.
• 14:23
  Eric Osansky: But then obviously with the increased resting heart rate, you know, and and then combined like the palpitations, I honestly didn't notice until after the blood test, until I still realized I had um hyperthourism.
• 14:35
  Eric Osansky: But yeah, I mean, and with hypothyroidism, it's I mean, a lot of people, there's other could be other causes for fatigue, like fatigue, weight gain are two of the more common symptoms.
• 14:46
  Eric Osansky: Obviously, there are other ones like coldness.
• 14:48
  Eric Osansky: If someone has coldness uh along with those symptoms, then they could maybe start putting the pieces together.
• 14:54
  Eric Osansky: But if they're just having the fatigue, the brain fog, you know, the weight gain, it could be other things.
• 14:59
  Eric Osansky: They might say, well, but it's just perimenopause, you know, if they're in perimenopause, or I mean, it could be adrenals, or of course a lot of people just blame it on poor eating, not enough sleep, which also, you know, could could cause many of those symptoms.
• 15:12
  Eric Osansky: So sometimes it is hard hard to, I guess, as far as diagnosing without testing, at least in my you know, my opinion, I I guess most people that come and see me or remotely work with me, they've already been diagnosed.
• 15:27
  Eric Osansky: But if someone if someone has come to me and they, you know, they haven't yet had blood tests.
• 15:33
  Eric Osansky: I mean, yeah, you could get in some cases a good idea if someone has hyper or hypo, but but again, there could be overlap with other conditions.
• 15:40
  Eric Osansky: So usually, you know, you do want to do some testing, um, at the very least, a basic thyroid panel, but um usually I like to go beyond that.
• 15:50
  Philip Pape: Okay, yeah, and I guess that's you're hitting on two populations, right?
• 15:53
  Philip Pape: People that have already been diagnosed and people that haven't.
• 15:55
  Philip Pape: And I guess people listening, let's start with the people that haven't, um, but they're having some issues.
• 16:00
  Philip Pape: Maybe it's it's an inability to lose fat and they're doing all the things that that's one of the ones I see a lot, right?
• 16:06
  Philip Pape: Is just we try to go in a calorie deficit and their adaptation is really fast.
• 16:10
  Philip Pape: Um, where even if they're tracking their calories and everything, it's like they have to keep dropping calories really fast and something's off.
• 16:16
  Philip Pape: And sometimes it's like, like you said, it's other hormones or it's perimenopause and other things happening at the same time.
• 16:22
  Philip Pape: So I guess the question is should like everybody listening get a thyroid, a basic thyroid panel soon if they've never had it?
• 16:29
  Philip Pape: That's the first question.
• 16:30
  Philip Pape: Like, just in general, should people be getting that?
• 16:32
  Philip Pape: Because there's certain things I feel like like testosterone for men, I feel like not enough men are getting it checked early just because the medical establishment doesn't require that at the moment, right?
• 16:42
  Philip Pape: So that's my first question.
• 16:43
  Philip Pape: Should everybody get their thyroid checked at a high level?
• 16:46
  Philip Pape: And then when should they be more concerned to do the testing that I want you to explain beyond that?
• 16:52
  Eric Osansky: Yeah.
• 16:52
  Eric Osansky: So to answer the first question, yeah, absolutely.
• 16:54
  Eric Osansky: You know, I think just like you know, most medical doctors, like if you go in for a physical, they're gonna do a CBC complete blood count.
• 17:01
  Eric Osansky: Um, they'll do a comprehensive metabolic panel, maybe a lipid panel.
• 17:05
  Eric Osansky: And many times it just stops there.
• 17:07
  Eric Osansky: But uh, yeah, I mean, obviously there are other markers like vitamin Z, I think everybody should get.
• 17:12
  Eric Osansky: You're right, like as far as like looking at test, you know, um testosterone and you know, sex hormones.
• 17:18
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, so I think that everybody should get not just TSH, um, because again, some some medical doctors will, as part of the physical, will look at TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone.
• 17:29
  Eric Osansky: But at the very bare minimum, should look at TSH, T4, and T3.
• 17:34
  Eric Osansky: And uh some doctors unfortunately look just look at T TSH and T4, but again, T3 is that active form of thyroid hormone, and you could your TSH might be within the lab range.
• 17:47
  Eric Osansky: Again, there's maybe not within the optimal range, but the medical doctor is just looking at the lab range.
• 17:52
  Eric Osansky: And again, we could talk more about that.
• 17:54
  Eric Osansky: But but so they'll look at TSH, they'll look at T4, both of them are within the lab range.
• 17:59
  Eric Osansky: They don't test T3, and again, they conclude everything's okay.
• 18:03
  Eric Osansky: Yet if someone has a low T3, and and again, even if they honestly if they tested T3, T3 might be on the lower side, but still a lot of times it's within the range, so they still might blow it off and say, Oh, that looks good too.
• 18:15
  Eric Osansky: But your T3 might be like a 2.3, whereas like optimal in the United States, like for free T3 would be between between like, in my opinion, like 3, 3.5.
• 18:25
  Eric Osansky: Some will say a little bit higher.
• 18:26
  Eric Osansky: But point is like 2.3 would be low on the lower side, but within the lab range of most labs.
• 18:32
  Eric Osansky: So again, getting back to the original question, yeah.
• 18:35
  Eric Osansky: I think at the very least, TSH, free T3, free T4.
• 18:38
  Eric Osansky: I mean, should everybody get, I mean, it's like reverse T3, there's antibodies.
• 18:43
  Eric Osansky: Should everybody get the whole gamut of thora tests?
• 18:46
  Eric Osansky: I mean, of course, I'm gonna be biased and say like it's uh you know, I mean, the antibodies, autoimmunity typically, I mean, it develops before it impacts the thora.
• 18:58
  Eric Osansky: There's like the silent autoimmune phase, especially with Hashimoto.
• 19:01
  Eric Osansky: So someone could have those autoantibodies for five, 10, 15 years.
• 19:05
  Eric Osansky: So we can make the argument that if we're gonna choose between thyroid a thyroid panel and antibodies, maybe we should test the antibodies first.
• 19:13
  Eric Osansky: But realistically, most medical doctors aren't gonna going to do the whole thing just because you asked them.
• 19:19
  Eric Osansky: Many probably won't just do the whole thyroid panel because you asked them, they might do again a TSH, maybe a TSH uh T4.
• 19:26
  Eric Osansky: So most people listening will probably have to do it on their own, which again is fine.
• 19:31
  Eric Osansky: I I pay for tests on my own, you know, like again, because I don't expect insurance to cover everything.
• 19:37
  Eric Osansky: But so yeah, I I would say, especially if you're experiencing like what you mentioned, if like you're having issues losing weight, gaining muscle, you know, have maybe having low energy.
• 19:47
  Eric Osansky: Um yeah, I mean, I would say not just don't just do TSH, free T3, free T4.
• 19:54
  Eric Osansky: I would say also look at reverse T3, look at the thyroid antibodies.
• 19:59
  Eric Osansky: Um
• 20:00
  Philip Pape: Um look, if you're listening, we've talked about performance blood work in the past.
• 20:03
  Philip Pape: Like if you if you have if you can afford it and have access to it, get everything tested, like in my opinion.
• 20:08
  Philip Pape: But you kind of answered that, that the antibodies are precursor, is what you suggested, to the flare-ups or the full condition occurring.
• 20:17
  Philip Pape: So chicken and egg, would you just jump right to that?
• 20:21
  Philip Pape: But try to at least get the main panel.
• 20:22
  Philip Pape: I think you answered the question.
• 20:24
  Philip Pape: You also alluded to ranges.
• 20:26
  Philip Pape: And so how would people know?
• 20:29
  Philip Pape: I know you mentioned numbers here on the podcast, but is it mainly in the functional medicine world that they're gonna get access to like what a good range is and getting these tests, or will some traditional doctors work this as well?
• 20:42
  Eric Osansky: Most of the time you'll have to see a functional medicine practitioner.
• 20:45
  Eric Osansky: I mean, every now and then there'll be a doctor that looks and sees, well, you know, your TSH is kind of on the higher side, but what's still within range.
• 20:53
  Eric Osansky: But most of the time they're just looking to see what's out of the range.
• 20:57
  Eric Osansky: And then if your TSH is like 3.5, which is within most lab ranges, but most functional medicine practitioners agree that's outside of the optimal range.
• 21:06
  Eric Osansky: So yeah, it's usually functional medicine that'll like tell you what the optimal ranges are or look at those optimal ranges.
• 21:14
  Philip Pape: Okay.
• 21:14
  Philip Pape: And then for the antibodies, I'm I'm definitely familiar with uh some of the um like the rheumatoid arthritis and um sclerosis and kind of those conditions where you do the ANA titer, and then if that's positive, then you go to the next level.
• 21:29
  Philip Pape: And I personally have a weird, undiagnosed mixed connective tissue disease that's like antibody only with no symptoms.
• 21:35
  Philip Pape: So, and I've had it for years and years.
• 21:37
  Philip Pape: So is that the process, or what are people looking to test for thyroid specifically?
• 21:43
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, no, typically you don't.
• 21:44
  Eric Osansky: Um, I mean, some people with Hashimoto's graves might have a positive ANA, but it's not like some other, you know, autoimmune conditions, like lupus.
• 21:52
  Eric Osansky: Typically, you want to do an ANA first, shogun's, I mean, then yeah, some others with what graves, Hashimoto's, usually, and this is just my approach, this seems to be the approach of most endocrinologists as well, where they're just gonna jump into the antibody testing if they do it at all.
• 22:09
  Eric Osansky: Against unfortunately, some of them just that they're not doing anything for the immune system.
• 22:13
  Eric Osansky: So some of them will just look at the thyroid numbers and that's it.
• 22:16
  Eric Osansky: They won't do any um, but but again, you like to think most of them will at least want to get a diagnosis that okay, the person has Hashimoto's, the person has graves.
• 22:26
  Eric Osansky: Um, so yeah, usually my my approach, if if the and let's say if someone didn't get the testing that they needed, um, yeah, I wouldn't necessarily say you know that everybody needs an ANA, but um, but yeah, I definitely would recommend to look at the um the antibodies.
• 22:42
  Eric Osansky: And when it comes to um thyroid autoimmunity, there's three types of thyroid antibodies.
• 22:48
  Eric Osansky: Um, the most common thyroid antibody, which you probably heard of, um TPO or thyroid peroxidase antibodies, which uh more commonly associated with Hashimoto's, but a lot of people with graves also have those antibodies.
• 23:01
  Eric Osansky: Um, thyroid peroxidase is an enzyme that's important for the production of thyroid hormones.
• 23:06
  Eric Osansky: So it is more closely associated with damaging, like so it's more people are more likely to become hypo if they over time if they have those TPO antibodies.
• 23:15
  Eric Osansky: You have also thyroidglobulin antibodies, and those are more specific to Hashimoto's.
• 23:20
  Eric Osansky: And then you have thyroid stimulating amnoglobulins, which are a type of TSH receptor antibodies.
• 23:26
  Eric Osansky: So they bind to attack the TSH receptors of the thyroid, and that leads to the excess production of thyroid hormone.
• 23:34
  Eric Osansky: And those, of course, are the ones that are associated with graves.
• 23:37
  Eric Osansky: And quickly, it's also worth mentioning that some people have all three antibodies.
• 23:41
  Eric Osansky: So it's not uncommon for people to have antibodies for both Hashimoto's and graves.
• 23:46
  Philip Pape: Interesting.
• 23:46
  Philip Pape: Okay, so thyroid peroxidase, TPO, thyroid globulin, and thyroid stimulating immunoglobulin that we just TSI.
• 23:53
  Philip Pape: Ah, look at that.
• 23:54
  Philip Pape: Good thing I'm writing my notes as we talk.
• 23:56
  Philip Pape: I love this stuff.
• 23:58
  Philip Pape: All right, great.
• 23:59
  Philip Pape: So that kind of autoimmunity, then I think you talk sometimes about like there are triggers for this, right?
• 24:05
  Philip Pape: It's not like how much of it is genetic and kind of unexplained versus we know there are triggers potentially where someone isn't there at this point, they can do something about it, say with their lifestyle diet or what have you.
• 24:17
  Eric Osansky: Yeah.
• 24:17
  Eric Osansky: I so I wrote one of the books I've written, Hashimoto's triggers.
• 24:20
  Eric Osansky: Um you know, again, there's it's it's almost what is it, like 500 and something pages.
• 24:26
  Eric Osansky: So again, there's a lot of a lot of different triggers, but to make it easier, I talk about four categories of triggers.
• 24:32
  Eric Osansky: So food, stress, environmental toxins, intoxicants, and infections.
• 24:38
  Eric Osansky: Um, some people say, well, how about nutrients?
• 24:41
  Eric Osansky: Well, nutrient deficiencies to me are more like underlying imbalances.
• 24:44
  Eric Osansky: I don't really like call them triggers.
• 24:46
  Eric Osansky: I guess you could call them triggers, but but either way, like food, such as gluten, um, is probably the most common you hear um most functional medicine practitioners, especially those that uh work with a lot of um autoimmune thyroid patients, uh and glute, you know, gluten.
• 25:02
  Eric Osansky: Not everybody has a sensitivity to gluten, um, but even if they don't, studies have shown, at least one study 2015 showed that it can can increase permeability in everybody, even if you don't have a sensitivity.
• 25:16
  Eric Osansky: Um, I mean, obviously, if someone has celiac disease, yes, they definitely want to be strictly avoiding gluten, even like cross-contamination.
• 25:23
  Eric Osansky: But while someone's healing, especially, I would say you want to avoid gluten.
• 25:28
  Eric Osansky: I mean, I recommend avoiding common allergens, gluten, taking a break from dairy, taking a break from corn, um, foods like that or food categories.
• 25:36
  Eric Osansky: But um stress.
• 25:38
  Eric Osansky: So I mentioned so I mentioned overtraining.
• 25:41
  Eric Osansky: So there could be either emotional or physical uh stress and um, you know, stress dysregulates the immune system, causes a pro-inflammatory um state.
• 25:52
  Eric Osansky: It um decreases secretory IgA, which lines the mucosal surfaces of the of the gastrointestinal tract, making someone more susceptible to infections, which is one of the other um triggers that I mentioned.
• 26:05
  Eric Osansky: Uh and um also, I mean, this isn't a trigger, but um, and we can talk about this after one way also as far as weight gain, stress, you know, affecting like cortisol, affecting conversion of T4 to T3.
• 26:16
  Eric Osansky: So if you have a lot of chronic stress, that could lead to lower T3 levels, which also could um cause weight gain.
• 26:23
  Eric Osansky: So, yeah, stress and again, overtraining, over-exercising, you know, also could be a stressor.
• 26:28
  Eric Osansky: Uh, environmental toxins, toxicants, uh, huge in this day and age, um, something we can't completely avoid.
• 26:36
  Eric Osansky: And they um and some of them, some of them are autoimmune, potential autoimmune triggers, heavy metals such as mercury.
• 26:44
  Eric Osansky: Now, xenoestrogens are fun, you know, because they they could also, again, this is just opinion, but in the literature, they also could affect autoimmunity, but they also are endocrine disrupting chemicals too.
• 26:59
  Eric Osansky: So, um, so for bisphenol A, BPA, microplastics can directly affect the thyroid gland, uh, disrupt the thyroid gland.
• 27:07
  Eric Osansky: And yeah, so it could disrupt the thyroid gland, causing low thyroid, could cause autoimmunity, being a factor with graves, Hashimoto's.
• 27:14
  Eric Osansky: Um, there's mold, mycotoxins that fall within the category.
• 27:19
  Eric Osansky: Uh, you know, then infections, different infections, viruses, uh, bacteria such as H.
• 27:25
  Eric Osansky: pylori, Lyme disease, uh, I mean, getting back to viruses during the pandemic, we definitely had a lot of people, a lot more people than usual with graves.
• 27:35
  Eric Osansky: And I think Hashimoto's too, um, but again, we saw a lot more with graves, but that's also because we focus more on seeing people with graves disease.
• 27:43
  Eric Osansky: But I think even if you look at the research, like in PubMed, you'll see with COVID, um, greater likely to develop graves compared to Hashimoto's.
• 27:53
  Eric Osansky: Um, Epstein Barr, there's that relationship for both graves and Hashimoto's is potentially being a trigger.
• 27:59
  Eric Osansky: Yeah.
• 28:00
  Eric Osansky: So again, those are um the four categories and some of the different um things within those categories that could um be triggers.
• 28:08
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 28:08
  Philip Pape: Uh, and everything you just described sounds like it's associated with all the things that the fitness industry is either trying to get more into and understand or fearmonger about, depending on the the side of the industry you're on, right?
• 28:21
  Philip Pape: Because we you could hear that list and say, like, oh, geez, I shouldn't even just go out in the world at all because I want to get an issue.
• 28:27
  Philip Pape: Things like environmental toxins, right, are interesting because I'm trying to learn more about that myself, Eric, because there has been a lot of misinformation in that world and there's detox and there's there's lots of buzzwords that aren't like scientifically defined the right way, in my opinion.
• 28:40
  Philip Pape: But like you mentioned, heavy metals and you know, chocolate has a lot of natural cadmium in it.
• 28:46
  Philip Pape: And people don't realize stuff like that.
• 28:48
  Philip Pape: And you're like, geez, even kind of things that we don't consider quote unquote unhealthy.
• 28:53
  Philip Pape: I mean, people, you know, milk chocolate, a lot of sugar, somebody might say maybe you should be eating that.
• 28:56
  Philip Pape: But even just pure cocoa has cadmium from the ground or from the tree, right?
• 29:00
  Philip Pape: From the cocoa bean.
• 29:01
  Philip Pape: And then um, you know, our cookware and and our uh beauty products, and like you just hear stories, it's like, where do you even begin with all that?
• 29:09
  Philip Pape: And I like you said, you can't avoid it all.
• 29:11
  Philip Pape: So the question with something like that is what's your 80-20 approach to dealing with that without just like throwing everything out of your house and living like a nomad in the woods, right?
• 29:21
  Philip Pape: So just on environmental toxins without making a whole separate episode, Eric, like if you had to pick the top three that most people are exposed to, that's a simple change in their life, what would they be?
• 29:33
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, I mean, definitely pure water, you know, just uh and not out of plastic water bottles.
• 29:38
  Eric Osansky: Um, so just uh, I mean, we have reverse osmosis.
• 29:41
  Eric Osansky: And I mean, that's controversy because it removes the minerals, but you could always add back minerals, but it also removes pretty much all the toxins and toxicants.
• 29:50
  Eric Osansky: But you know, you could also get a good quality spring water out of a glass bottle like Mountain Valley Springs.
• 29:55
  Eric Osansky: I mean, that's another option.
• 29:56
  Eric Osansky: But either way, you don't want you want to avoid tap water, you want to avoid water out of plastic bottles.
• 30:01
  Eric Osansky: So that would be number one, the the biggest change they they can make.
• 30:05
  Eric Osansky: And then um, I mean, you mentioned, I think you mentioned like um cosmetics, like cleaners, cosmetics.
• 30:10
  Eric Osansky: I mean, those are also the second change and um that people can make um because most of most of our exposure is within our own home.
• 30:17
  Eric Osansky: I mean, obviously we get also exposures outside, but even so, there's so only so much we could do once we walk out of our home.
• 30:24
  Eric Osansky: But you know, we I guess depends on the person how much time we spend in our own home.
• 30:28
  Eric Osansky: So, but again, the cosmetics cleaners that we use every day, they're our natural altern alternatives.
• 30:34
  Eric Osansky: I mean, yeah, they're gonna be a little bit pricey, but you could also make your own.
• 30:38
  Eric Osansky: And again, it's not like food.
• 30:40
  Eric Osansky: I mean, or obviously organic food, you know, you could go through that really quickly.
• 30:44
  Eric Osansky: But if you with your cosmetics, I mean, you're probably maybe not the best discussion with me and you because we're guys and we probably don't use as many cosmetics compared to like woman, but I was gonna say that.
• 30:55
  Philip Pape: Like, I just keep it simple.
• 30:56
  Philip Pape: That's my that's my solution.
• 30:58
  Philip Pape: Just don't do it, use many of them.
• 31:00
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, but but again, even you know, my wife, I mean, it's not like she's ordering.
• 31:04
  Eric Osansky: I mean, she probably is ordering every week, but they're different ones, like whatever she, you know.
• 31:08
  Eric Osansky: But again, like use natural shampoos, natural, you know, again, use you know, body creams or whatever you use.
• 31:14
  Eric Osansky: I mean, there's again a natural option.
• 31:17
  Eric Osansky: And start, I mean, just start with one or two to begin with, if you have to.
• 31:21
  Eric Osansky: Again, if you're like, you know, if you're using like 15, 20 different ones, I know it's you're probably not gonna swap all of them at once.
• 31:28
  Eric Osansky: Maybe use one or two that you use the most.
• 31:31
  Eric Osansky: And um, and you can visit um environmental working group, I think ewg.org, um the skin deep website, um, like to see like if the because again, just because it says natural doesn't mean it you gotta also become an expert in reading ingredients, but you can use uh labels.
• 31:48
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, so exactly.
• 31:50
  Eric Osansky: So um, and then I mean there's a few different things.
• 31:54
  Eric Osansky: I mean, I guess we could say pure air, like you get a pure air purifier or a couple of air purifiers in your home, depending on how big your home is.
• 32:02
  Eric Osansky: But even again, if you just start with one, like a HEPA air purifier and put it in the room where like you know, I guess if you have kids and all that, it's it's hard because again, you want I I was gonna say the bedroom is where you probably spend most of the time, like at least hopefully seven, eight hours.
• 32:19
  Eric Osansky: But then again, if you have kids, you're probably gonna, but you could if you could only start out if if you could only afford one, you could also rotate it, like put it in your, you know, like your kids' room one one night, you know, put in your room another night if you absolutely have to.
• 32:32
  Eric Osansky: I mean, the ideal situation would be to have multiple air filters, but yeah, I would say, you know, clean clean water, cosmetics, air, again, not necessarily in that order.
• 32:42
  Eric Osansky: We could say air maybe before the cosmetics.
• 32:46
  Eric Osansky: I mean, so yeah, and then a fourth one, and again, not necessarily in number four, we can bump this up to, but I mentioned the food, like maybe trying to eat more organic food, less especially fruit, vegetables, and and meats.
• 33:01
  Eric Osansky: And um, yeah, so I would say those I'll say that those are my top four.
• 33:06
  Philip Pape: Yeah, no, it's great.
• 33:07
  Philip Pape: Like you said, if there's if it's 500 pages of triggers and each of these categories, you probably have like 20 episodes on each on your podcast.
• 33:14
  Philip Pape: You know what I mean?
• 33:15
  Philip Pape: It's just so, so detailed.
• 33:16
  Philip Pape: So we're not gonna solve all of that today.
• 33:18
  Philip Pape: It's more of an awareness so that people understand that there are multifactorial reasons to care about what's going in your mouth, what you're doing, managing your stress.
• 33:29
  Philip Pape: I like that you mentioned, you know, both the emotional and physical stress, because I think stress also is a big catch-all.
• 33:36
  Philip Pape: And I feel like, I don't know, 20 years from now, are we gonna have much more nuance when we say stress?
• 33:41
  Philip Pape: Because there's like the stress response itself is so complex and like fundamental to the human body that there's even perceived stress, Eric.
• 33:48
  Philip Pape: Like the more I work with clients just like you do, I'm sure the way people frame things and their psychology around stress and things in their life tend to affect the stress response inside their body.
• 33:59
  Philip Pape: Right.
• 33:59
  Eric Osansky: Oh, yeah.
• 34:00
  Eric Osansky: Well, I yeah, and I think that's I mean, that's even more important than the stressor itself, because you're right.
• 34:04
  Eric Osansky: I mean, you have two people with identical stressors, and it's really does come down to the perception of the stressor if someone is, you know, just uh more laid back, and you know, the whole saying don't sweat the small stuff, but even if, again, even sometimes like big stressors, I mean, that there some people just do a better job of handling the stress.
• 34:22
  Eric Osansky: And again, their perception of the stress, everybody's perception of the stress is different.
• 34:27
  Eric Osansky: So, yeah, that's an excellent point.
• 34:28
  Philip Pape: And and where is that line of stress when it comes to what we call the good stressors, right?
• 34:33
  Philip Pape: The hormetic stressors like training uh and exercise, where you know, your message of not overtraining is also one that I have a lot.
• 34:41
  Philip Pape: And very often uh I'll see a client with adrenal issues, with stress issues, they're medicated, and they just have to strip out a lot of what they're doing and just simplify.
• 34:51
  Philip Pape: And all of a sudden it unlocks a new era of low stress, growth, better hormones, uh, and even the building muscle.
• 35:00
  Philip Pape: They go to the gym now three days a week instead of seven, and they start building more muscle because they're not so stressed and underrecovered.
• 35:05
  Philip Pape: So, where's that line so that people can self-diagnose or figure out where that is?
• 35:11
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, I mean, it's a good question.
• 35:13
  Eric Osansky: You know, I mentioned earlier a lot of it comes down to listening to your body, you know, like they're you know, so because again, sometimes it is hard to know like, are you overdoing it?
• 35:23
  Eric Osansky: And um, and and and again, this is also where your expertise comes in.
• 35:27
  Eric Osansky: So, and I think I asked you when you're on my podcast, like, how long should people train for?
• 35:31
  Eric Osansky: Like, if someone's, you know, at the gym for or even at home working out, you know, for like two hours straight, that might be a little bit too much, in my opinion.
• 35:40
  Eric Osansky: Now, maybe maybe for some people it's not, but I mean, I guess when I dealt with graves and I was, or actually before, prior to my graves diagnosis, and I was over exercising after my workout, and I wasn't working out for two hours, you know.
• 35:54
  Eric Osansky: I was maybe working out for an hour, so which is what kind of what I do now.
• 35:58
  Eric Osansky: The difference is I was doing more cardio than than you know, uh and high intensity, not not necessarily high intensity interval training, but just high intensity, like just going all out, you know, on the rowing machine and running, you know, just on just and just yeah, I was wiped out.
• 36:14
  Eric Osansky: So that's not a good sign, too.
• 36:15
  Eric Osansky: Like, you know, it when you're done with your workout, in my opinion, you should feel like you could do more.
• 36:21
  Eric Osansky: That doesn't mean you necessarily should do more, but you feel like, you know, I feel good, I feel like I got a great workout in.
• 36:27
  Eric Osansky: But you know, if I had to go another 20, 30 minutes, I could do that, you know, and also it's a good sign when you work out.
• 36:34
  Eric Osansky: Like again, I I I do most of the time I go, I do have some equipment at home, but most of the time I go to the gym.
• 36:39
  Eric Osansky: And when I'm done, I could just walk out.
• 36:41
  Eric Osansky: I don't have to like sit down and rest and you know, and and catch my breath for for a few minutes before heading out, so which again ties into the first one where you could do more.
• 36:51
  Eric Osansky: So that's so so there are obvious signs.
• 36:53
  Eric Osansky: I mean, sometimes it might not be that obvious, but I think those, I mean, and again, I love to get your your feedback with this, but I think again, just really listening to your body.
• 37:04
  Eric Osansky: Not I'm not against cardio, I do cardio, but just again, not I think that's more people do it with overdo it with the cardio.
• 37:11
  Eric Osansky: But I'm sure you also see people doing it overdoing it with um maybe weight training too, and just again, maybe doing an hour and a half, two hours of weight training.
• 37:20
  Eric Osansky: And again, may some people might be fine doing that, other people not fine.
• 37:25
  Philip Pape: Yeah, yeah.
• 37:25
  Philip Pape: I mean, it depends on the mode and and like an hour and a half for some of the big, you know, powerlifting type guys is is not a big deal because they're taking so much rest.
• 37:33
  Philip Pape: But yeah, I like your litmus test actually there for how do you feel at the end of your workout?
• 37:38
  Philip Pape: Because I personally did CrossFit for like eight years, and I would say 10% pro, 90% con out of that experience.
• 37:47
  Philip Pape: Um, number one, because I probably got some long-lasting injuries and nagging things going on because of high reps, constant muscular endurance, never taking a break, and then doing things with terrible form in the interest of speed, you know, can all exacerbate your stress on your body as well.
• 38:05
  Philip Pape: But if you're falling down and you have to like lay on your back for 10 minutes before you even move after workout, that's probably a good sign it's over stressful.
• 38:13
  Philip Pape: I think of that like if you're competing, you know, or if you're powerlifting competition or whatever, that's where you're pushing a max, and that's like an extreme, right?
• 38:20
  Philip Pape: Or if you did a marathon, that's an extreme.
• 38:22
  Philip Pape: That's the few and far between, not the every single training session.
• 38:25
  Philip Pape: So listen, listen to what Eric is saying because that just is a very simple metric where next time you go to the gym, if you're just completely wiped, think about what that means and and where you could potentially dial back.
• 38:37
  Philip Pape: So I agree.
• 38:38
  Philip Pape: Other than that, it's like, are you able to go into the gym the next session feeling pretty fresh?
• 38:44
  Philip Pape: And are you not feeling overly sore?
• 38:46
  Philip Pape: Because you shouldn't be chasing soreness either.
• 38:48
  Philip Pape: That's a different, a different thing.
• 38:50
  Philip Pape: Anyway, you're my guest on the podcast.
• 38:52
  Philip Pape: I don't want to do all the talking here, but yeah, yeah, no, that's good stuff.
• 38:55
  Philip Pape: So what else about thyroid?
• 38:57
  Philip Pape: There's a lot about thyroid we could talk about.
• 38:58
  Philip Pape: Um, I think you hit on earlier the treatment for thyroid.
• 39:03
  Philip Pape: I think it's important to touch on because you talk about you know natural approaches, which we love here.
• 39:09
  Philip Pape: Um, but I know there you there's radioactive iodine, there's surgery, there's things that just destroy or remove the thyroid, right?
• 39:16
  Philip Pape: What's the spectrum look like in terms of treatment options?
• 39:19
  Philip Pape: Which ones are you more, you know, in favor of if people can do it, versus cautious of?
• 39:25
  Eric Osansky: Yeah.
• 39:25
  Eric Osansky: So, and of course it varies depending on whether someone has hypothyroidism Hashimoto's or hyperthyroidism grave.
• 39:32
  Eric Osansky: So, like with Hashimoto's, it's um or low thyroid, typically it's um thyroid hormone replacements, is what most conventional medical doctors recommend.
• 39:42
  Eric Osansky: And and also a lot of functional medicine doctors.
• 39:44
  Eric Osansky: There definitely is a time and place for thyroid hormone replacements.
• 39:48
  Eric Osansky: But you know, just um as I mentioned earlier, it depends on what's going on with the thyroid.
• 39:53
  Eric Osansky: And sometimes they just look at the TSH and they make that determination.
• 39:56
  Eric Osansky: TSH is is elevated.
• 39:58
  Eric Osansky: So let's just give You some levo thyroxin, which is synthetic T4.
• 40:02
  Eric Osansky: And again, they might not look at maybe they will also look at the T4, um, but they won't look at the T3.
• 40:08
  Eric Osansky: And if the T4 is looking good, T3 is low, giving more T4 isn't necessarily the answer.
• 40:14
  Eric Osansky: Now, you could say then there's also synthetic T3, like cytomal, that you could give, or you could give desiccated thyroids, such as armor, um NP thyroid, you know, are two of the more common um prescriptions uh options out there.
• 40:26
  Eric Osansky: There's also like thyroid glandulars, too, that have some T4, T3 that you could kind of get on your own without a doctor's prescription.
• 40:34
  Eric Osansky: But either way, I mean, there's a time and place for that.
• 40:37
  Eric Osansky: But you of course want to try to address the underlying cause of the problem, even if you do need thyroid hormone replacements.
• 40:43
  Eric Osansky: I mean, if it's Hashimoto's, you want to address the autoimmune component.
• 40:47
  Eric Osansky: Some people will still need to remain on thyroid hormone even when addressing the immune system.
• 40:51
  Eric Osansky: But some people actually could get off of it or might need a decreased dose.
• 40:55
  Eric Osansky: But again, most medical doctors just say be on the thyroid hormone.
• 40:59
  Eric Osansky: They're not doing anything for the immune system in the case of Hashimoto's.
• 41:02
  Eric Osansky: And then again, when it's like non-autoimmune and you have that conversion problem, T4 to T3 conversion, it's like, well, why do you have the conversion problem?
• 41:10
  Eric Osansky: Why do you, you know, rather than just again, even if they give T4 and T3 a desiccator, that's covering both bases.
• 41:16
  Eric Osansky: And again, maybe the person doesn't need T4 if it looks good, but still they'll typically give it.
• 41:21
  Eric Osansky: The TSH is high.
• 41:23
  Eric Osansky: Um, they usually won't just give T3 alone.
• 41:26
  Eric Osansky: But yeah, anyway, so that's typically what we're looking at with hypotharism Hashimoto's as far as treatment.
• 41:32
  Eric Osansky: Uh with um with hyperthaurism graves, I mentioned the three options antithyroid medication, radioactive idiot and thyroid surgery.
• 41:41
  Eric Osansky: But what I didn't mention is when I dealt with graves, I actually took an herbal approach to symptom management while adjusting the cause of the problem.
• 41:49
  Eric Osansky: So I used uh an herb called bugleweed, which I don't know if you ever heard of.
• 41:54
  Eric Osansky: It's not one of the more popular herbs out there, but um, so bugleweed is an herb that has antithyroid properties.
• 42:00
  Eric Osansky: And um I took that and it and I noticed it helping probably within the first week.
• 42:07
  Eric Osansky: Um, I mean, symptom-wise.
• 42:09
  Eric Osansky: So that's where you're asking like symptoms versus testing, and I didn't know for sure, you know, if um if it like I didn't know like what my thyroid, of course, looked like, but when I took it, I was measuring my resting heart rate, and I noticed my heart rate was decreasing while taking a bugweed.
• 42:25
  Eric Osansky: I was still having some palpitation, so I also added another herb called motherwart, which is uh kind of like a natural beta block, or not exactly.
• 42:33
  Eric Osansky: I mean, it hel helps support the cardiovascular system, um, has other functions as well.
• 42:37
  Eric Osansky: But um, but yeah, so I took bugoweed as well as um motherwort.
• 42:44
  Eric Osansky: And then those are what I took, but you you're probably well familiar with L-carnitine.
• 42:49
  Eric Osansky: So I wanted to bring up L-carnitine too, because there are some studies uh related to hyperthaurism.
• 42:54
  Eric Osansky: Usually it's not, you know, like when you hear about L-carnitine, it's like to support like fatty acid oxidation and other benefits.
• 43:01
  Eric Osansky: But yeah, there are some stuff, there are actually a few studies.
• 43:04
  Eric Osansky: Uh, there's one, actually a few older studies, um, and not like really old, but showing that higher amounts of L-carnitine, like 2,000 to 4,000 milligrams, could block the entry of thyroid hormone into the cell.
• 43:17
  Eric Osansky: So it could actually act as like kind of antithyroid.
• 43:20
  Eric Osansky: Um, and then a more recent study from August 2025 showed that taking just only 500 milligrams of L-carnitine when combined with selenium, and this was specific to Graves patients, show that these people needed less thy less medication, less um methymazole in their cases, and then um also helped with the thyroid antibodies.
• 43:41
  Eric Osansky: So L-carnitine, another option.
• 43:43
  Eric Osansky: Lemon balm is something else, another is an herb that commonly recommended for those with hyperthyroidism has kind of like a calming effect.
• 43:51
  Eric Osansky: Um, so there are definitely natural options.
• 43:54
  Eric Osansky: And then um one other thing I'll I'll throw out there, which you might have had other um guests speak about, maybe uh LDN, low dose naltrexone.
• 44:03
  Eric Osansky: I don't know if um so which uh for both graves and Hashimoto's and other autoimmune conditions, it can modulate the immune system.
• 44:11
  Eric Osansky: And uh, I mean it's not doing anything for the cause of the problem, but neither is anything else that I just mentioned.
• 44:16
  Eric Osansky: I mean, we're just talking about more natural options, they're not doing anything for the cause.
• 44:20
  Eric Osansky: But you know, so LDN, the good news, it's it's helping to modulate the immune system.
• 44:26
  Eric Osansky: The the bad news is if like someone's taking LDN and they're also trying to do things to improve their immune system health, like lower antibodies naturally, it might be hard to know if they're taking LDN because LDN could lower the body.
• 44:40
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, I see.
• 44:41
  Eric Osansky: So but as soon as they're off the LDN, they usually the antibodies will eventually increase.
• 44:46
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 44:47
  Philip Pape: So along those lines, I was actually thinking um you talked about triggers and uh food and diet and exercise and training.
• 44:54
  Philip Pape: Is be is being too lean a problem for someone with higher thyroid issues, or can it cause it?
• 45:01
  Philip Pape: And I mean like being excessively lean, like bodybuilding stage lean.
• 45:07
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, I mean, yes.
• 45:09
  Eric Osansky: I mean the answer, I mean, if you're if you're too lean, that um definitely could um be a problem from uh from a thyroid standpoint.
• 45:17
  Eric Osansky: Um also an adrenal standpoint, too.
• 45:20
  Eric Osansky: We really haven't spoken much.
• 45:22
  Eric Osansky: I I did mention a little bit of cortisol, but um, but yeah, you you know, we this day and age, of course, there's a lot more talk about like obesity and prompted obesity, which obviously that's that's an issue.
• 45:35
  Eric Osansky: But yeah, you know, when I uh I I'll I'll say though, in my practice, when I see I see a lot of that, but it's mostly not people being too lean from like working out or dieting.
• 45:45
  Eric Osansky: But again, in my case, I see it like in my situation, like hyperthyroism.
• 45:49
  Eric Osansky: There's a lot of work with a lot of women where they're and that's not good either.
• 45:52
  Philip Pape: That's uh like uncontrolled weight loss, right?
• 45:54
  Philip Pape: Is what you're saying.
• 45:55
  Philip Pape: A little bit different, but you're talking about actually like it's not somebody who's deliberately being lean, and and and in some cases there's a situation where they you know they're afraid to gain weight or don't want to gain weight, they want to stay lean, but then they have a thyroid issue, and you know, my first thought is gain some weight and let's see how that helps.
• 46:11
  Eric Osansky: Like intermittent fasting.
• 46:12
  Eric Osansky: I mean, that also like I'm I don't have anything against intermittent fasting, but if someone's doing like a you know, like 20, like a four-hour eating window, you know, every day, it's just 20 hours stressful, right?
• 46:23
  Eric Osansky: And that, you know, could be responsible for like the thyroid getting lower and not you know, just um, so yeah, that could that I don't know if you'd say trigger, I guess you could say trigger, like underlying cause, you know, so not like a trigger like autoimmune trigger, but as far as a factor causing the you know, like the low thyroid.
• 46:41
  Eric Osansky: So, yeah, certainly if someone is um like really restricting calories, that could be a big factor.
• 46:46
  Eric Osansky: I mean, you sometimes we see that with um again, I'm not that I have a lot of people that follow a ketogenic diet, but ketogenic diet can can have that uh impact on thyroid.
• 46:55
  Philip Pape: Yeah, no, I I ask because it is an avatar that's out there, and it's like we know we know that thyroid is is downregulated through a calorie deficit itself, but that's kind of a normal response.
• 47:05
  Philip Pape: It's once you've leaned out and and then you try to stay lean.
• 47:09
  Philip Pape: I I know there are negative set, and we know that from the physique world, but you know, I think some people are in denial that they should just gain weight and maybe that will help, you know, kind of recover.
• 47:20
  Philip Pape: Uh, and there's there's sometimes reasons for that body dysmorphia and other stuff that we have to deal with.
• 47:25
  Philip Pape: But the fasting thing is an interesting one because I'm seeing more online now about a recent big meta-analysis that came out.
• 47:32
  Philip Pape: And I first came to my attention from Alan Aragon because he posted about it that showed uh, you know, inflammatory markers measured by blood, you know, can go up with prolonged fasting, which is not a huge surprise.
• 47:44
  Philip Pape: We many of us know that it's a stressful thing, but there's such a narrative about fasting being this wonderful thing for reasons that are not supported that it's important to mention the downsides.
• 47:53
  Philip Pape: So uh last thing, Eric, uh, is I was thinking you're an expert in the space, you've been in it for uh a long time now, like 15 years plus, I want to say, right?
• 48:04
  Philip Pape: Uh since you're a condition, basically.
• 48:06
  Philip Pape: You've written books, you host the podcast.
• 48:09
  Philip Pape: Is there something you've heard a lot?
• 48:10
  Philip Pape: Okay, so you've heard a lot.
• 48:11
  Philip Pape: Is there something about thyroid health that either people are not talking about or not acknowledging enough, or you wish more people knew, if that makes sense?
• 48:21
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, that's that's a that's a really good question.
• 48:23
  Eric Osansky: I mean, most of what we spoke about here.
• 48:26
  Eric Osansky: I mean, the triggers are well that's true.
• 48:28
  Eric Osansky: I mean, that's um, yeah, I mean, you know, if I had to like pick one, because there are a lot of things, again, I I'll go back to you know, the toxins and toxicants.
• 48:37
  Eric Osansky: I mean, you do hear more like in the functional medicine space, of course, about the plastics and the microplastics, but you know, the glyphosate, things like, you know, so but unfortunately, you just still see people like you know, um, people still don't pay attention.
• 48:54
  Eric Osansky: I mean, even at the you know, like you go to the gym, for example.
• 48:57
  Eric Osansky: Again, I don't know if you work out at home or at the gym, you work out at home, right?
• 49:00
  Eric Osansky: I think at home, but I've been to gyms.
• 49:02
  Eric Osansky: But if you go to the gym again, you'll see a lot of people still carrying their like plastic water bottles that might be, you know, either sometimes just regular plastic water bottles that you know have the BPA, sometimes it's the BPA-free um water bottles that also have like the BPS, the like they have other structural analogs that act like BPA, so they're still endocrine disrupting chemicals.
• 49:21
  Eric Osansky: And then not the gym I go to doesn't have this, but you know, some like you know, when cleaning the machines, they have like the sprays, like you know, so people are spraying all over.
• 49:30
  Eric Osansky: Like I so I guess the big thing, and again, this probably is going beyond the thyroid, but I guess the point is like a lot of these things are endocrine disruptors, thyroid disruptors, um, also other hormones too, not just the thyroid, but since we're focusing on the thyroid, but but again, like I said, they they have dual effects, they're not only disrupting the thyroid.
• 49:50
  Eric Osansky: Well, actually, I should say more than two effects, because some of these like microplastics, um, bisphenol A.
• 49:56
  Eric Osansky: So I mentioned endocrine disrupting chemicals affecting thyroid directly and other hormones.
• 50:02
  Eric Osansky: Um, I mentioned also being potential trigger for autoimmunity, but they also could increase permeability of the gut, you know, as well.
• 50:11
  Philip Pape: Um which is linked to the thyroid and many other things.
• 50:14
  Philip Pape: Yeah.
• 50:15
  Eric Osansky: Disrupt the gut microbiome, which yeah, affects the thyroid, but affects like again, if you have another thing too, if you have one autoimmune condition, more likely to develop other autoimmune conditions in the future.
• 50:25
  Eric Osansky: So I mean, I'm I'm going off on a tangent here, but I guess the chemicals is still something that you know you don't hear enough about.
• 50:33
  Eric Osansky: You don't see, you know, you still you see people do, I mean, people I think are definitely eating cleaner.
• 50:37
  Eric Osansky: A lot of people are eating cleaner, and you do see, I guess, people at least trying to attempt to drink cleaner water.
• 50:44
  Eric Osansky: But again, too much are too many people are buying water by the case, you know, still like plastic water bottles by the case, and you know, still um, you know, spraying their lawn with, you know, using things that have glyphosate in there.
• 50:57
  Eric Osansky: And again, the cosmetics too.
• 50:59
  Eric Osansky: I mean, a lot of people are are switching to natural cosmetics, but still, I mean, most of the people I know, like when I just meet people randomly, you know, like outside of the functional medicine space, they're usually not doing that.
• 51:12
  Eric Osansky: And, you know, they're fascinated when I have conversations about these things, and it's like, yeah, just uh so so not enough.
• 51:19
  Eric Osansky: So I would say that's one thing that I talk about all the time.
• 51:22
  Eric Osansky: Um, one of the things I talk about all the time that still most people aren't doing.
• 51:27
  Philip Pape: Yeah, what what comes to mind?
• 51:29
  Philip Pape: This is just anecdotal, because you said it's not talked about outside functional medicine.
• 51:33
  Philip Pape: First of all, the incentives we have in place and the environment we have in place is always a huge force, right?
• 51:38
  Philip Pape: Including our food environment.
• 51:39
  Philip Pape: We know that there's so much pressure and economic incentive.
• 51:43
  Philip Pape: And I don't mean that in a conspiratorial way.
• 51:45
  Philip Pape: I just mean like you're gonna buy the case, the tub of water because it's cheaper and it's more readily available.
• 51:50
  Philip Pape: So that's an economic incentive.
• 51:52
  Philip Pape: People are tired and not wanting to think about this stuff, too, as much as, you know, I think another thing is they don't see the results.
• 51:59
  Philip Pape: This is one of those things that's mysterious and I'll say has like, I guess, longer-term impacts on your health that are harder to measure.
• 52:06
  Philip Pape: Whereas like you go to the gym for a few weeks and you look better in the mirror, you know, that's going to be a self-reinforcing pattern.
• 52:12
  Philip Pape: So if we can connect some of these behaviors to the blood work, the thyroid, the things that are measurable, perhaps that'll be a way to do it.
• 52:20
  Philip Pape: I did an episode not long ago about um cookware in the kitchen, like talking about the PIFAs in your non-toxic pans, because my wife hasn't wanted to use non-toxic pans for a long time.
• 52:30
  Philip Pape: And I used to be the guy that was like, eh, it's, you know, and then the more I looked into it, the more of holy crap, this is this stuff is is so I just made eggs today in my uh the chef's foundry was one of our sponsors.
• 52:41
  Philip Pape: So I got some pans from them, and they're like the not the ceramic, you know, non-top non-stick um without the stuff.
• 52:47
  Philip Pape: Uh, but yeah, what so glass water bottles, um, glass, if you're gonna microwave using glass, like I think that's a good idea.
• 52:54
  Philip Pape: Uh, all that stuff is important.
• 52:56
  Philip Pape: It's just a matter of awareness and the pocketbook and how important it is to you, and how important you think it's actually make moving the needle, right?
• 53:04
  Philip Pape: All what we're trying to do, right, Eric?
• 53:06
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, exactly.
• 53:07
  Eric Osansky: Uh, I I do agree.
• 53:08
  Philip Pape: So, anyway, where can people find you?
• 53:10
  Philip Pape: Because it's been a cool conversation.
• 53:12
  Philip Pape: I want to, I'll definitely um send them to your podcast.
• 53:15
  Philip Pape: And uh, where else do you want them to look you up?
• 53:18
  Eric Osansky: Yeah, so yeah, the the podcast.
• 53:19
  Eric Osansky: Um, there's um, I mean, my books, uh, the I think you mentioned them in the beginning.
• 53:23
  Eric Osansky: Three, I have three books on Amazon, two of them related to hyperthourism, um, one of them related to Hashimoto's.
• 53:31
  Eric Osansky: Uh, we're chatting a little bit before um interviewing.
• 53:34
  Eric Osansky: I have uh a community uh on the platform School Healing Graves Naturally, which uh save my thyroid.com forward slash heal graves disease.
• 53:43
  Eric Osansky: Um so that's um that's growing pretty quickly and there's a lot of engagement in there.
• 53:48
  Eric Osansky: And um yeah, I also have a newsletter, Healthy Gut Healthy Thyroid.
• 53:52
  Eric Osansky: Um, so help with Savemythhour.com forward slash newsletter.
• 53:56
  Eric Osansky: So um, so yeah, those are some of the places you could check me out.
• 53:59
  Philip Pape: So it sounds like if we we include the link to the podcast and your website, the website can get them to the books and the community and everything else.
• 54:05
  Philip Pape: It's all connected there.
• 54:06
  Eric Osansky: That should be true, but it's not at the books, yeah.
• 54:09
  Eric Osansky: Actually, the books, um like the books, my YouTube channel, it does, but but actually I need to actually include links to the newsletter and the community.
• 54:17
  Eric Osansky: But if they actually visited the newsletter, they there are a lot of other resources.
• 54:20
  Eric Osansky: But I yeah, I actually probably thought those are new things this year.
• 54:24
  Eric Osansky: So my website's been around for a few years.
• 54:27
  Philip Pape: All right.
• 54:27
  Philip Pape: So thank you so much, Eric.
• 54:28
  Philip Pape: Guys, check out the Save My Thyroid podcast.
• 54:31
  Philip Pape: You'll also hear our discussion on there.
• 54:33
  Philip Pape: Um, you'll have to hunt around depending on when all these episodes come out.
• 54:36
  Philip Pape: Go to save my thyroid.com.
• 54:37
  Philip Pape: We'll throw all these links in the show notes.
• 54:39
  Philip Pape: Eric is the man.
• 54:40
  Philip Pape: If you want to learn about thyroid, you know, natural approaches, triggers, what to test, what to do.
• 54:46
  Philip Pape: Uh, a lot of our stuff is very much aligned.
• 54:48
  Philip Pape: So if you have a question, reach out to him or me about this topic and we'll help you out.
• 54:52
  Philip Pape: Eric, thank you so much for coming on Wits and Weights.
• 54:55
  Eric Osansky: Thank you so much, fella.