Hypothyroidism and fluorine: intimate enemies.

Although this blog is dedicated mainly to the paleo/low-carb diet, I can not resist to explain certain aspects which, although not directly related to the paleo diet, are related to the overall diet and the Fluorine and its impact on health is one of them.

 Fluorine is an iodine antagonist, ie it tends to replace the iodine in the thyroid, causing a thyroid malfuction. In fact, fluoride has been and is used in some countries as a medicine to treat hyperthyroidism ( There you'll find an extensive bibliography on thyroids and fluoride ), especially in Germany.

 Why is it harmful?  follow this link.  Fluorine replaces the iodine and prevents tyrosine (the hormone secreted by the thyroid) to function properly.

As fluorine is detrimental to the functioning of the thyroid, hypothyroid patient should watch the fluorine content of various foods. For a comprehensive list of high fluorine content food, follow this link.

 Based on this list, we can see that there are a number of foods that should be consumed carefully by hypothyroid patients: the most damaging, the tea on all products (Nestea, green, red, black, etc), grapes in all products (fresh, dried, juice), wine (white wine curiously has twice the red fluoride) and crustaceans.

 Does this mean that the hypothyroid should resign to take these foods? Probably no need to avoid them at all costs, but to reduce them to a minimum, meaning that their consumption should be sporadic: it's okay to drink a tea, but not to be taken every day or perhaps every week . On the other hand it is clear that the hypothyroid should reject outright the fluoridated salt.

Another item to consider is the toothpaste: the hypothyroid should use toothpaste with less fluoride. I've found about 400 ppm (parts per million fluoride) when the normal is 1000 to 1600 ppm. By the way, it's a child toothpaste. A reflection: how many times a person with well-controlled hypothyroidism was not found, suddenly, with a relapse inexplicable? The hypothyroid patient that suffers those relapses should try to analyze if they occurs hours or days after eating high fluorine food.

 Another day we´ll talk about crucifers and thyroid.