Background
Increasingly, patients are asking their physicians about the benefits of dietary and alternative approaches to manage their diseases, including thyroid disease. We seek to review the evidence behind several of the vitamins, minerals, complementary medicines, and elimination diets which patients are most commonly using for the treatment of thyroid disorders.
Summary
Several trace elements are essential to normal thyroid function, and their supplementation has been studied in various capacities. Iodine supplementation has been implemented on national scales through universal salt iodization with great success in preventing severe thyroid disease, but can conversely cause thyroid disorders when given in excess. Selenium and zinc supplementation has been found to be beneficial in specific populations with otherwise limited generalizability. Other minerals, vitamin B12, low-dose naltrexone, and ashwagandha root extract have little to no evidence of any impact on thyroid disorders. Avoidance of gluten and dairy have positive impacts only in patients with concomitant sensitivities to those substances, likely by improving absorption of levothyroxine. Avoidance of cruciferous vegetables and soy has little proven benefit in patients with thyroid disorders.
Conclusion
While many patients are seeking to avoid conventional therapy and instead turn to alternative and dietary approaches to thyroid disease management, many of the most popular approaches have no proven benefit or have not been well-studied. It is our responsibility to educate our patients about the evidence for or against benefit, potential harms, or dearth of knowledge behind these strategies.
Let Alice choose T HH and Bill choose HT H. Each of the ltf-states need a third flip outcome H or T to complete the triplet. Starting from ltf-state HH, an outcome of H yields a no-win situation
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.