Recently, I interviewed Dr. Wendy Myers, and we talked about the impact of environmental toxins, especially heavy metals like mercury, on thyroid healt. If you would prefer to listen to the interview you can access it by Clicking Here [1].
Dr. Eric Osansky:
I am very excited to chat with Dr. Wendy Myers, as we will be discussing the impact of environmental toxins on your thyroid health.
Let me go ahead and dive into Dr. Wendy’s bio: She is a naturopathic doctor and founder of MyersDetox.com. She is an anti-aging, heavy metal detox, and bioenergetics expert as well as the #1 best-selling author of Limitless Energy: How to Detox Toxic Metals to End Exhaustion and Chronic Fatigue. Dr. Wendy is the host of a top 100-rated podcast The Myers Detox Podcast, about protecting your health with detoxification. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Wendy.
Dr. Wendy Myers:
Thank you so much for having me.
Dr. Eric:
Very excited to chat with you about toxins and the way they impact the thyroid. You could start out with your own thyroid-related story. If you could give your background and how you started helping others focusing on helping people with environmental toxins.
Dr. Wendy:
Right after I had a baby, I noticed I was having a lot of different issues going on. I made the mistake of going vegan for about six months, and I had a lot of stress prior to getting pregnant. All of these stressors caused me to eventually develop some thyroid issues. A lot of people who are vegan inevitably have thyroid issues.
Heavy metals and toxins play a huge role, especially mercury, in promoting thyroid issues. I’ll get into that. I was very mercury-toxic because I had a lot of fillings removed when I was 21 improperly. I think that knocked my thyroid out and caused depression and gut issues and many other things that I dealt with in my 20s.
I was living this healthy lifestyle after having a baby. Then my health took a huge nosedive. I went to the doctor and found out for the first time I had low thyroid function; I was hypothyroid. All my other hormones were low as well. Toxins interfere with our sex and stress hormones as well.
One of the big reasons so many people have thyroid issues, which we’ll talk about, is because of pesticides and heavy metals and mercury. I’ll go into detail about the exact mechanisms by which heavy metals cause thyroid issues.
I was very dismayed to learn I was having all these different issues, that my body was going awry. It’s so easy for people to mark these things up as getting older. Your thyroid or other hormones become imbalanced. It’s not just because of aging. That can certainly play a role in it. But it’s more the toxins we’re exposed to, and our diet and lifestyle as well.
Dr. Eric:
It’s safe to say that’s why we have a greater incidence of people with thyroid /autoimmune thyroid conditions. The environment is not getting any better when it comes to these heavy metals, pesticides, and other toxins.
Dr. Wendy:
No, it’s only going to get worse. We have 140,000 chemicals that have been developed right now. There are about 40,000 in use. That’s a lot. There are dozens of metals being drudged up around the planet for various uses. They get into our air, food, and water. They are being removed from the earth’s crust.
Look around you. There is metal in everything you’re touching. More importantly, we’re breathing all this stuff in. The #1 way we become toxic is actually breathing. There is also chemicals in our food, toxins in our shower water. Even if you’re filtering drinking filtered water or spring water, you’re getting exposures in the shower. It sounds really depressing. We are getting exposed in a lot of different ways.
There are different things people can do to remove these toxins from their body that are creating roadblocks to function in all the different organ systems, including the thyroid.
Dr. Eric:
Let’s go into some of the mechanisms as far as how heavy metals and other environmental toxins impact the thyroid. Even if you want to expand on that in the immune system, not just thyroid autoimmunity, but there are a lot of different autoimmune conditions like MS or RA. Environmental toxins have an impact on these as well.
Dr. Wendy:
Most chronic health conditions will have a heavy metal or chemical as an underlying root cause, if not outright causing it. We can say that about diabetes or heart disease or high blood pressure or any kind of chronic health condition. There is a toxin that we have seen in the research that is contributing to it.
As far as thyroid functioning, there are a lot of different metals like mercury, lead, cadmium, and nickel that reduce thyroid function in a few different ways. What they do is cause enzyme inhibition. The enzymes are involved in the production of thyroid globulin, which is the storage form of thyroid hormone.
They interfere in amino acid absorption, so toxic metals like arsenic, aluminum, tin, thallium negatively impact the absorption of tyrosine in the gut. Tyrosine is required for the manufacture of thyroid globulin. If you have low tyrosine, you will have low thyroid globulin. If you take proton pump inhibitors, you will have the same problem with tyrosine absorption.
We also have issues with energy production that is required for iodine uptake. Our thyroid hormones are made of iodine. If you have any toxins, which are all of them that interfere in mitochondrial energy production, you will have a problem taking in that iodine, if you even have enough.
Most people are deficient in iodine. I take 15mg per day of iodine. Most people are not getting any iodine in their food. A lot of people are avoiding fish or not eating that much. They certainly are not eating seaweed. Where are you getting your iodine? People typically need to supplement with it.
When we are talking about specific heavy metals, mercury is a huge culprit. It’s one of the #1 culprits in interfering with thyroid function. It has an affinity for the thyroid gland. Mercury gets stored in the thyroid gland. It can also take the place of iodine, which is a crucial component, the main ingredient in creating thyroid hormones. The T3 hormone, which is three molecules of iodine, and T4 molecule, which is four molecules of iodine.
When the mercury gets into the thyroid gland, you could have a sensitivity to mercury. Your immune system could launch an attack on mercury, and your thyroid gets taken out as a side effect. We can see people losing thyroid tissue because their body is trying to attack the mercury. You can develop a sensitivity to anything in your body: any food, heavy metals, etc. You will have more increased symptoms as a result of that mercury versus the next person, who has the same amount of mercury but doesn’t have an immune response to it.
When we are talking about our pituitary gland, it’s like the master gland. It’s signaling to the hypothalamus to make more TSH, which tells our body to make more thyroid hormone. Mercury interferes in this feedback loop, telling the body to make T4 and then communicating that to make more TSH.
In the hypothalamus, mercury can deposit in there. When this happens, the TSH manufacture can be inhibited.
Additionally, in the blood, mercury can inhibit the conversion of free T4 to free T3. Mercury poisons enzymes like deiodinase, which convert free T4 to T3 in blood circulation.
That is a very small glimpse of one heavy metal and what it’s doing to the thyroid. This is not accounting for the dozens of metals and the thousands of chemicals. If anyone wants to do a deep dive on how chemicals affect the thyroid, I have 180 different research citations on how pesticides and other toxins affect the thyroid. It’s no wonder today that so many people are on thyroid hormones or have undiagnosed thyroid issues that are resulting in resistant weight loss, depression, and other issues related to low thyroid hormone production.
All of this can apply to people who have hyperthyroidism as well. Different toxins can cause general malfunction of the thyroid, either high thyroid hormones or low thyroid production.
Dr. Eric:
Or they can impact the immune system, which most cases of both hyper and hypo are autoimmune. Most hypothyroid conditions are Hashimoto’s, and most hyper conditions are Graves’. The heavy metals, including mercury, can impact the immune system. That’s another mechanism.
When you talk about mercury, are you concerned about both methyl mercury that is in fish as well as inorganic mercury, which is in silver fillings? Is there one that you’re more concerned about over another?
Dr. Wendy:
They’re all problematic. We don’t need mercury of any type in our body. The inorganic and organic are both problematic.
What’s really more problematic is testing. A lot of testing doesn’t distinguish between the different types, so you don’t know which one to go after. Quicksilver Scientific has a great test called the Mercury Tri-Test, which will tell you about the different types of mercury you have. But that’s just one toxin.
Testing is great. I recommend heavy metals testing. Sometimes, people have weird metals that require specific nutrients to remove them. Any kind of detox program is going to go a long way, like sweating or ionic foot baths or coffee enemas or liver supports. Minerals go a long way to removing a lot of the toxins that people have, regardless of what type of metal it is. There are different types of arsenic and mercury. We can all get them removed with a good detox program.
Dr. Eric:
I listened to a few of your podcast interviews and heard you talk about ionic foot baths. I do sauna regularly. Supplementation is something that I do and recommend. I can’t say I have much experience with ionic foot baths. Is that specific for heavy metals, or is that good for all different types of environmental toxins?
Dr. Wendy:
I like them because they are good for all different types of toxins. Plus they get rid of radiation in your body. Infrared saunas also kill cells affected by radiation, which is a big problem in our environment right now.
I love ionic foot baths because they are easy to use, and anyone can use them. They don’t take up a lot of space. You don’t get sweaty and gross. I love infrared saunas, believe me. I love sweating. I love doing them. But the ionic foot baths are really easy to do, and I think people can be more compliant with them. You can do them while at your computer or watching TV. Little kids or sick people or old people can do them. Not everyone can do saunas or has the space for them.
Dr. Eric:
That’s a good point. I work with a lot of people who have hyperthyroidism. Some of them have an elevated resting heart rate, which is common with hyperthyroidism. They might not be a good candidate for sauna since that raises heart rate. They may want to wait until things are more stable before going into the sauna.
I use the sauna now three times a week. When I was dealing with Graves’ and active hyperthyroidism, I wouldn’t have wanted to go into a sauna because my resting heart rate would sometimes get in triple digits. Definitely a believer in sauna. Thank you for that explanation with the ionic foot baths.
Dr. Wendy:
On that note, there is a lot of garbage out there. I really like the HEALTHandMED IonizeMe Maxx 5. You can do a code Wendy6, for a 6% discount.
There is a lot of expensive foot baths and a lot of cheap ones on Amazon that are not worth even bothering with. You have to have a really strong one. Most people have to do 400 hours of foot baths on average. That’s a lot of time invested. If you get a really cheap one, you might have to do 2,000 hours. You will be doing it and not improving how you’re feeling or your symptoms and think it doesn’t work when it’s just the foot bath you bought. So you have to be careful with that.
Dr. Eric:
For someone who is a new patient or client, do you have them do the ionic foot baths every day?
Dr. Wendy:
It depends. Some people might not be able to handle every day. I would start with a few a week. I used to do two hours a day, but I have been detoxing for a long time. I have been doing stuff for 15 years. I wanted to get to my 400 hours as fast as I could.
You also have to replete minerals. They do pull minerals out of you. Everywhere there is heavy metals, there is also minerals you could be detoxing, so you have to replete those for every foot bath you do. Take a bunch of sea salt and water or coconut water or something like that.
Do it a few times a week. You can eventually work up to every day or a couple times a day, two in a row.
Dr. Eric:
It’s similar to a sauna. When I do sauna, I definitely replete minerals. I didn’t realize that with ionic foot baths, it’s the same thing.
Dr. Wendy:
Yeah, same deal.
Dr. Eric:
Thank you for that code.
We focused on heavy metals. How about other environmental chemicals? How concerned are you about pesticides or herbicides? There’s glyphosate, flame retardants, and so many other chemicals. A lot of them do affect thyroid, at least indirectly. Glyphosate could affect the gut microbiome, which could in turn set the stage for Graves’ or Hashimoto’s.
Dr. Wendy:
If people really want to go in depth and look at the research, I have that article on my site, “The Pesticides and Chemicals That Impact the Thyroid.” That goes in deep.
These chemicals in general poison enzymes, things like hydroxylase enzymes. That will negatively impact the ability of the body to produce all different types of hormones in the body. The glyphosate is essentially an antibiotic, killing gut bacteria. Different pesticides are very estrogenic and interfere in the production and balance and conversion of our sex hormones. All of it creates this domino effect in the body to weaken the body, our immunity, our hormone production; stress the body, the adrenals, the thyroid, our blood sugar balance. Every organ system in the body is affected, our neurotransmitter production, our brain function. It’s pretty devastating what all these pesticides, herbicides, insecticides, and other chemicals are doing.
It’s not only what we’re breathing in the air; we’re getting it in our food. Even in organic food, 7% of that is contaminated with chemicals. We’re getting it in our beauty products. We have a lot of exposure.
I think there is so many loved ones we know that are on five or more medications or are chronically ill and are not getting better. This is a huge underlying root cause that is not being looked at by the conventional medical community. It’s my passion and mission to educate the public, educate the medical community.
The research I have done over the last 15 years, these chemicals and toxins are huge roadblocks to our organ systems functioning, huge contributors to so many health issues. It’s shown in the research that lead alone is responsible for 17% of all-cause mortality. This is a quote from Dr. Joe Pizzorno, who is on my Heavy docuseries that is coming out soon.
I don’t think people understand the huge impact that heavy metals and chemicals are having on their health, their loved ones’ symptoms and outcomes. There are very simple, holistic, natural ways that don’t have side effects that people can do to dramatically improve their symptoms and outcomes for them and their loved ones and their family.
Just another example, diabetes, the #1 cause of diabetes is heavy metals and chemicals. Namely, arsenic. It dramatically interferes in our pancreas’ ability to control our blood sugar. There are a thousand other examples I can cite. It’s not just our thyroid that is being affected, though I can cite dozens of examples of mechanisms of how it’s being affected.
When you look at the obesity epidemic, 2/3 of people in the U.S. alone are obese. There is so many mechanisms by which heavy metals and chemicals are interfering in liver function, blood sugar control, sleep, appetite, and gut bacteria that contribute to obesity and resistant weight loss. All the chemicals and additives in the food as well.
With people who are dealing with weight issues, another passion of mine is communicating to people that it’s not necessarily your fault. It’s not just calories or carbohydrates consumed. There are a lot of toxins that are throwing a wrench into people’s weight loss efforts. It can be resolved and remedied, doing detoxification strategies. Not only for weight loss, but for so many other chronic health conditions as well.
Dr. Eric:
I don’t know if you have read the book Clean, Green, and Lean, focusing on the impact of environmental toxins on weight gain. I wrote an article a number of years ago on the term “obesogen.” Without question, for those who are struggling to lose weight, that is an excellent point. A lot of people focus on diet and exercise and won’t consider at all the impact of these environmental toxins.
Dr. Wendy:
One clue that toxins might be a problem is if, say, after I had a baby and was trying to lose weight, the amount of effort that I put in, going to bed hungry, working out 68 hours a week, injuring myself because I was pushing so hard, low carb, all the stuff I was doing. I should be an Olympic athlete if I was doing this in my 20s. I realized then something innately was wrong in my body. It wasn’t working how it used to work, and I was only 37 at the time. That is what propelled me to do all this testing, which is when I found out I had low thyroid function.
If you are struggling with your weight, and you are doing everything right, and you seem like you are killing yourself, you want to be looking at getting some heavy metal or chemical testing and doing some detox. I assure you, no one’s exempt. It’s impossible living on the planet we are on right now and not be breathing in or eating or showering in toxins every single day.
Dr. Eric:
I think your favorite test is hair testing?
Dr. Wendy:
Yeah, I love the hair mineral analysis. It’s really easy and cheap to do. Anyone can do it. I like to start with that. I usually will recommend the full picture, looking at hair, urine, and stool. Just a hair mineral analysis is enough to design a good detox program for someone that will work perfectly adequate for them.
Dr. Eric:
What are your thoughts on chelation therapy? I kind of know your thoughts, but I want for others to hear them. I have heard you talk about chelation on other podcasts.
Dr. Wendy:
Heavy metal chelation, like what a lot of functional medical doctors would offer for detox support, has its place for sure. If you go to your functional doctor, that’s what they will recommend typically. It’s almost like dropping a nuclear bomb on an anthill to get rid of it. It’s not the place that you start.
It certainly has its use case if someone has a life-threatening heavy metal toxicity. If they have life-threatening mercury or lead toxicity, yes. We have to get it out of the body right away.
The problem with chelation is it doesn’t go deep enough. Realistically, you will only be able to do so many of those in a row. Maybe 10 sessions in a row. It will be very expensive. The body is not going to release heavy metals that it’s using. It’s not going to release heavy metals that it’s using for various things, like cadmium being used in the arteries to repair them, or in deeper places in the body, like the brain or the liver or in the bones. The chelation is not going to get to these deep, buried toxins.
What you have to do is facilitate the body’s natural ability to detox. It needs minerals. It needs magnesium. Any time you take a ton of calcium, you will displace and push lead out of the bones. That is just one example. If you take a ton of zinc, you will displace and push out cadmium from the body. That takes months, if not years.
Chelation is not going to do that, though it does have its place. It’s not something I ever actually recommend to any of my patients, and I never have.
Dr. Eric:
Balancing the minerals, correcting mineral deficiencies is very important when it comes to detoxification. You mentioned sauna, the ionic foot baths. How about diet? How important is eating a healthy diet? I don’t know if you recommend a plant-based diet, not vegan, but cruciferous vegetables. Is that not sufficient to support detoxification?
Dr. Wendy:
No, you can’t detox just with diet alone, definitely not. You can’t just detox with juicing. I try to drink one juice a day because it’s very mineral-rich. That’s another way to get a lot of minerals.
I recommend a paleo diet for the majority of people. There is a bell curve. Everyone is different, what diet they should eat.
If you think about it, over millions of years, we evolved eating meat. There isn’t any denying that, no matter what ideation or saving the planet or other arguments for various plant-based diets. If we’re talking strictly along the lines of health, then it’s a diet including animal proteins, for not just the sulfur-containing amino acids in our liver, but also for the different types of fats that comprise the membranes of our brain. 25% of our brain is cholesterol.
You are not going to fare very well over a period of time completely eliminating animal foods out of your diet. I know. I have been there. I was vegetarian for a while and then vegan, and definitely paid the price in my health and brain function, which all disappeared as soon as I started eating animal protein again.
I do know some people who seem to do okay on vegan. That’s very few people. Very few people. But I just don’t think most people can long-term deal with the severe nutrient deficiencies in that diet. Certainly, their detoxification ability will be compromised.
A lot of people can fare on a very well-designed vegetarian diet. But the majority of people are going to do best on a paleo or paleo-based diet that includes animal protein.
Dr. Eric:
I agree. I follow more of a paleo diet. As far as patients with Graves’ or Hashimoto’s, many times, I’ll have them follow a paleo or AIP diet. Some people will be vegetarian or vegan, but if someone asks me what I recommend, it’s more of what you said.
Dr. Wendy:
I generally find people fare better and feel better with more energy, and symptoms magically disappear once they start incorporating some animal protein, if they haven’t eaten that in a long time.
If you want to know the top five detox foods, I would say #1 is broccoli sprouts. They are amazing. Then onions, garlic, ginger, and some cruciferous vegetables, and egg yolk. It has lots of choline in it. Very good for detoxification.
Dr. Eric:
Awesome. I want to talk about your documentary. Anything else you want to cover first? Obviously, there is a lot to cover. You and other experts will be talking a lot during the documentary. Any last words before you dive into the documentary?
Dr. Wendy:
A lot of people out there are going down different rabbit holes trying to figure out how to improve their symptoms or how to address their thyroid or how to address another issue. I think people need to pull back. Usually, any health issue they have, it’s really a systemic issue. Everyone also has heavy metals and chemicals. There are some people out there who are unbelievable detoxers genetically. Grandma who smoked until she was 100, she probably has pretty good detox genes. That might not be you. It might be.
A lot of people are exposed to a lot of toxins, so this needs to be on your radar. It needs to be part of your health protocol, things you do on a daily basis, doing daily detox. I assure you, it’s an underlying root cause of your symptoms: fatigue, brain fog, weight loss, a diagnosis, whatever it is that’s annoying you. Toxins are exacerbating it. When you remove them, you are removing all the roadblocks to your body functioning better.
I urge people to start taking the power back in their hands because they are not going to get this information at your conventional medical doctor’s. They won’t do heavy metal testing. They won’t know anything about it. Even if they do, they don’t know how to detox you.
You need to educate yourself about this because there are very simple things you can do that are incredibly effective, and the research stands behind them. Infrared sauna, 40% reduction of mortality from all causes, using it five days a week. You can’t argue with that. Very simple and pleasurable things you can do on a daily basis to get rid of these toxins causing your health issues.
Dr. Eric:
I am only using the sauna three days a week, and I thought I was doing good. I need to add an extra two days per week to get to that 40%.
Dr. Wendy:
With three times per week, there is a 25% reduction. You’re not short changing yourself; there are still benefits.
Dr. Eric:
Cool. Let’s talk more about the upcoming documentary, which is free. What can people expect when they attend the docuseries?
Dr. Wendy:
My documentary is called Heavy. I interviewed 100 different experts on the topic of how heavy metals and chemicals cause various health issues. We are focusing on a few.
We are focusing on how toxins cause brain health issues, like brain fog and dementia. Dementia is a huge problem, and it’s totally reversible. Not every type. Alzheimer’s and other ones have amazing researchers talking about how these are induced by toxins, and they are reversible if caught early enough.
We talk about weight, obesity, and how toxins are contributing in so many ways, throwing a wrench in so many organ systems and other body systems to produce the result: 2/3 of people in the U.S. are obese, and it’s a growing problem around the world. It’s not just diet; it isn’t. In China, they are eating thousands of billions of pounds of rice every year. India, same thing. Everyone in the world is eating tons of carbohydrates, and they are not all obese. It’s something more than that. It’s the chemicals in our environment that have grown exponentially since the ‘80s and ‘90s.
We also talk about hormones—sex, stress, and thyroid—and how chemicals are negatively impacting those.
We talk about energy. We talk about how toxins are interfering in mitochondrial functioning.
We have videos about how toxins affect digestion. 40% of people have digestive issues. It’s amazing how much toxins can destroy our gut microbiome, our gut’s ability to absorb nutrients.
We have one on anti-aging, how toxins are causing aging, which is a big passion of mine, to educate on that.
We have other videos as well. There will be seven videos that are available for free during the free viewing period, which begins on February 15. I’d love for you guys to join me. There are experts like Dr. David Perlmutter, Dave Asprey, Chris Kresser, Dr. Chris Shade, Dr. Jill Carnahan. There are 100 experts, like Dr. Joe Pizzorno, founder of Bastyr University. Dr. Jeffrey Bland. So many others who are coming together to help educate you about how toxins are causing so many different health epidemics and what you can do about it.
Dr. Eric:
Wonderful. I look forward to tuning in. Your website is MyersDetox.com. Your podcast is The Myers Detox Podcast. Anywhere else where people can find you?
Dr. Wendy:
My website is great. I’m on all the social media, @MyersDetox.
Dr. Eric:
Thank you so much, Dr. Wendy. You shared some great information. I’m sure that many listening to this will want to learn more. Definitely sign up for Dr. Wendy’s documentary. You said Heavy is the name?
Dr. Wendy:
Yes, the documentary is called Heavy.
Dr. Eric:
Again, thank you so much for your time.