Your thyroid is a butterfly-shaped gland in your neck, just above your collarbone. It is one of your endocrine glands, which make hormones. The thyroid helps set your metabolism—how your body gets energy from the foods you eat - and impacts every cell in your body.
Millions of people in the U.S. have thyroid diseases. Most of them are women. If you have a thyroid disease, your body uses energy more slowly or quickly than it should. A thyroid gland that is not active enough, called hypothyroidism, is far more common. It can make you gain weight, feel fatigued, and have difficulty dealing with cold temperatures.
Some symptoms of poor thyroid hormone function in the body include:
Fatigue
Mental depression
Sluggishness
Feeling cold
Weight gain
Dry skin and hair
Constipation
Menstrual irregularities
Poor concentration
Thyroid hormone production and conversion is very rooted in nutrient balances in the body. Keeping this is mind, science demonstrates that nutritional interventions can promote healthy thyroid hormone production and conversion. Promoting intake of these key nutrient can help many people who have symptoms of hypothyroidism but are told that their labs are "normal."
Accurate testing for thyroid hormone regulation in the body is more complicated than the usual TSH only testing that most conventional providers order. A comprehensive thyroid panel should include both regulatory hormones (TSH and thyroxine) along with active thyroid hormones (T3 and reverse T3) and key nutrient markers such as iodine, vitamin D and antibodies. Test your thyroid function like never before with our Comprehensive Thyroid Panel which is designed to see if an individual has too little, or too much, iodine and selenium, and/or exposure to the iodine/
selenium antagonists bromine, arsenic, and mercury; full assessment of thyroid health, including screening for hypo or hyperthyroidism, testing for autoimmune thyroid disease, and monitoring thyroid replacement dosages.
Elements that affect thyroid function
Thyroid function can be affected by nutritional deficiencies, particularly iodine and selenium, and by environmental exposure to bromine, arsenic, selenium, mercury and cadmium. We are all, to varying degrees depending on our dietary choices, our supplementation routine, or our lifestyle, exposed to the elements iodine, bromine, selenium, arsenic, mercury, and cadmium. These elements are present in the food we eat, air we breathe, and water we drink, as a result of pollution as well as natural occurrence, and are generally tasteless, odorless, and impossible to detect without sophisticated instrumentation.
How does exposure to these elements affect health?
Iodine is an essential component of thyroid hormones T3 and T4, so its deficiency has a serious impact on thyroid hormone synthesis. Bromine is in the same chemical family as iodine and excessive amounts will compete with iodine in the thyroid, producing inactive thyroid hormone. Selenium is a component of selenoprotein which convert inactive T4 to its active form in the body (T3).
Arsenic and mercury are toxic heavy metals that form tight complexes with selenium and therefore reduce selenium’s bioavailability, resulting in biological effects similar to selenium deficiency including a disruption to
thyroid health. While bromine, arsenic, and mercury are known
biological toxins, iodine and selenium can also potentially be
toxic if dietary intake, including excessive supplementation, is
too high.
Vitamin D
Vitamin D and thyroid hormones bind to similar receptors. According to Richard Shames, MD, “Vitamin D is so crucial to thyroid function that its status has now been elevated by researchers to co-hormone. We now know that the variability of thyroid to work or not work in the body is dependent upon the presence of Vitamin D, making it not just of benefit, but absolutely essential.”
There is a documented association between Vitamin D deficiency and autoimmune thyroid conditions. Emerging evidence demonstrates that low Vitamin D levels play a significant role in the onset of thyroid cancer
If you are ready to take a deep dive into how your thyroid hormones are working in your body, then order your Comprehensive Thyroid Panel today to take control of your health.
References
ZRT Lab. Provider Data Sheet. 2025
Mackawy, A. M., Al-Ayed, B. M., & Al-Rashidi, B. M. (2013). Vitamin d deficiency and its association with thyroid disease. International journal of health sciences, 7(3), 267–275. https://doi.org/10.12816/0006054
Vassalle Cristina, Parlanti Alessandra, Pingitore Alessandro, Berti Sergio, Iervasi Giorgio, Sabatino Laura. Vitamin D, Thyroid Hormones and Cardiovascular Risk: Exploring the Components of This Novel Disease Triangle. Frontiers in Physiology, (12) 2021
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