A Conversation With - A Thyroid.
What should we do with an organ that whilst vital for almost every aspect of our health, misbehaves so frequently that every minute, 240 Americans will be written a prescription to replace it?
Clearly, invite them in to tell their side of things!
B&B: And thanks so much for joining us today Thyroid!
T: My pleasure – I’m excited to have this opportunity to help your readers understand the Thyroid community a little better.
B&B: Before we dive into your many responsibilities, you’re a member of the endocrine system which means:
T: I’m one of 8 major hormone producing glands and whilst we all use blood to transport our hormones to the right body regions, our hormones do very different things: everything from making our owners feel thirsty to managing their blood sugar and even, helping them grow a new human!
B&B: Tell us about your typical day:
T: Because my owner’s an adult, one of the main tasks of my hormones is to help control her basal metabolic rate (BMR).
B&B: People from spin class instructors to diet gurus toss around that term BMR but I’m not sure everyone actually understands it:
T: Agreed, think of it like this:
Everything people eat moves from their gut to their many, many cells. Each cell is a miniature power plant, taking this food through a series of chemical reactions to break it down and release energy. That’s energy the body needs to power everything from moving air in and out of the lungs, to solving math problems and making useful things like new cells and ….. hormones!
Metabolic rate is just the rate of this food breakdown and energy release.
When we’re not running around or trying to concentrate on remembering who’s who in Game of Thrones, food breakdown is happening slowly as breathing and other basic body activities are super energy efficient – and it’s that slow, steady rate we call basal, (meaning “at rest”) metabolic rate.
Thyroid hormones are a major controller of BMR, this basic tick over rate of our owner’s chemical reactions. Your readers may know someone with hypothyroidism (not enough of the thyroid hormones) who struggles to avoid gaining weight – their BMR is set too low so less food is broken down to release energy, leaving lots left over to be converted to the dreaded fat! ☹
B&B: Got it. Okay, you were telling us about a typical day:
T: I get a real kick out of being a team player, for example:
· Partnered up with my owner’s nervous system, I’ll help her with everything from calculating her taxes to keeping her cheerful and ensuring she gets a good night’s sleep!
· When she’s trampolining and needs to move extra oxygen to those hard-working muscles? My hormones work with her heart and adrenal glands to make that happen.
· Although not quite a daily activity (!), I’ll be a crucial team member if my female owner wants to get pregnant. The glory always goes to hormones like estrogen and progesterone but my hormones are vital for making everything from eggs, to placentas and even breast milk once the baby’s been born. And if I was a thyroid in a male owner, I’d be helping out with sperm production too!
B&B: Wow that’s impressive! You mentioned your owner is an adult, did you have different responsibilities when they were younger?
T: Absolutely. Thyroid glands through their hormones are helping regulate BMR even before babies are born but they have additional, different and enormous responsibilities in children – if I had been too quiet during her childhood, neither my owner’s brain nor skeleton would’ve developed properly.
B&B: Tell us then, what do you need to make the magic happen?
T: Two things: iodine and a great boss!
Because thyroid hormones contain lots of iodine, we thyroids are pretty obsessed about our diet! We can suck up that mineral from vegetables, dairy products and even seafood but many governments have also helped us out by requiring the addition of iodine to salt so that today, at least in the developed world, it’s pretty unusual to be low on iodine.
And my boss is amazing - I don’t have to make any decisions for myself! A small part of the brain, the hypothalamus, controls the behavior of many of the endocrine glands, including letting me know how much thyroid hormone I should release and when. I get that message via the hypothalamus’ second in command, the pituitary gland, and then I just do what I’m told!
B&B: So, if the above are forces for good in your life, how about the not so good?
T: It truly pains me to say it but all thyroids have a love/hate relationship with their owner’s immune system. Immune systems are vital in protecting their owners against infections and even cancer but they have a nasty habit of turning on their owner’s thyroid gland.
B&B: That’s an “autoimmune disease” right?
T: Right.
One minute someone’s thyroid gland and immune system are getting along fine and next, that immune system’s decided its companion thyroid gland is foreign and must be destroyed.
Thyroid disorders are second only to diabetes when it comes to ailments that mess with people’s hormones and a shocking one in ten thyroid glands will malfunction during our owner’s lifetime, most of us because of attack by our own immune system.
B&B: I see a future interview with the immune system to give them a chance to defend themselves on that one! But, to finish on a positive note, what advice would you give to any young aspiring thyroids trying to live their best life?
T: Hmm, we’re really a pretty resilient community and our owners don’t have much control over most of the things that can make us go awry,
For example, your readers might have seen Oprah saying she “blew out her thyroid” with overwork? I hate to doubt the mighty Oprah, but I’ve never heard of any of my thyroid community going under because they were ridden hard by their owners.
I guess steering clear of the radioactive fall-out from nuclear accidents? That’s obviously good advice for every organ to live by but it’s true that we thyroids are especially sensitive to the effects of radiation.
And if that young thyroid could put itself in a family without a history of thyroid disease that would definitely increase their chances of a long and healthy existence.
But finally, and I really hate myself for saying this, they should just hope for a male owner - the likelihood of a male-dwelling thyroid going off the rails is just so much less than for those who travel through life with a woman!
B&B: Lol, great advice 😉 and huge thanks to you Thyroid, for getting this series off to a truly wonderful, thought provoking start.
Stay curious,
