Other Herbal Thyroid Treatments
Graves’ Disease
Unlike Hashimoto’s hypothyroiditis, Graves’ disease seems very amenable to successful herbal intervention and control. The three main herbs used are Melissa officinalis (lemon balm), Lycopus virginiana (bugleweed), and Leonuris cardiaca (motherwort) in descending order of strength and apparent thyrosuppressive efficacy.
Melissa officinalis, in particular, when delivered in measured doses as tincture, tea, or, less exactly, freshly extracted juice from a “wheatgrass juicer” stops TSH from binding to its thyroid receptor sites, slows or even quells the uptake of iodine by the active transport sites on thyroid cell surfaces, suppresses the iodination of tyrosine residues in the follicular lumina by TPO, and appears to also impede stored thyroid hormone release from the thyroid gland. The results can be especially rewarding. My personal preference is to have hyperthyroid patients grow and harvest their own lemon balm and also to prepare their own medicine. It grows abundantly in all except xeric habitats with sufficient water and a little shade. It will over-winter in pots. The freshly expressed juice can be frozen. I do not know if freeze-dried Melissa products are effective.
A critical point for herbal treatment of Graves’ is the active and aware participation of the patient in monitoring both symptoms and their respective body responses to herbal treatment. Melissa has a fine reputation as a calming herb and it may be that the calming action is not as a nervine, but as a very effective thyrosuppressant. I do not have data on the proportions of T4:T3, or T3:rT3 in Melissa treatment of Graves’. The possibility of potential overmedication with Melissa, a temporary hypothyroidism, exists, but I have no known cases to report.
Lycopus virginiana, apparently both American species and the European one, are effective in slowing down TSH adherence to its rightful cell surface receptors and the uptake of iodine by thyroid cells. It does not seem as quick as Melissa. Ruth Dreier, one of my former apprentices, reported in the 1994Journal of the Northeast Herbal Association about her long and arduous but eventually successful efforts to slow and stop progressive Graves’ using tea, tincture, and fresh plant material of Lycopus virginiana. She found the tea and tincture to be more effective than the fresh plant material, which suggests to me that some type of molecular cleavage or rearrangement is necessary for effective use of Lycopus as a thyrosuppressive. She also used severe dietary restrictions and careful self-monitoring of her symptoms, using the tincture as a sort of quick-fix medication.
Some of the purported almost-narcotic effects of Leonuris cardiaca as a somnambulant may be due to thyrosuppressive activity.
I usually also recommend small (1-2 grams) daily dosages of Fucus in hyperthyroidism since some dietary iodine is needed for basic body functions.
Contemporary British Columbia coastal natives drink a strong tea (decoction) of devil’s club(Oplopanax horridum) root and stem bark to cure hyperthyroidism. I do not know the dosages or the duration of the treatment. I predict that a correlation exists between devil’s club’s type II diabetes remediation and its successful thyrosuppression. The post-consumption devil’s club lethargy may be thyrosuppression at the TRH hypothalamic level rather than direct action on the thyroid gland.
A cautionary note: Patients with undiagnosed Graves’ disease may become hyperthyroid from absorption of increased dietary or topical iodine.
Case History
A 47-year-old female was diagnosed with Graves’ disease based on blood tests ordered by an endocrinologist she had been referred to by her family doctor. She was first alerted to the likelihood of thyroid dysfunction by her usual pedicurist who noted the recently greatly-thickened skin on her feet. The patient also presented feeling hot all of the time, with increased sweating, heat intolerance, insomnia, huge appetite, hyperactivity, fatigue, heart palpitations, manual tremor, and eye irritation — all Graves’ hyperthyroid symptoms. Her tests were TSH < 0.03 (normal range is 0.5-3.5) and T4 224 (normal range 65-165). A family health and emotional crisis generated acute worry and anxiety.
The endocrinologist offered her three therapeutic choices: surgical thyroid gland removal, use of thyrosuppressive drugs, or radioactive iodine burning of the thyroid gland out of existence. None of these were acceptable, so she went to see a naturopath-acupuncturist and began taking tinctures of bugleweed, Siberian ginseng, motherwort, lemon balm,, and, later, Hawthorn in addition to acupuncture treatments. In 5 months, her T4 had declined a bit to 198, but her TSH remained essentially nothing at <0.03. She started a homeopathic constitutional remedy (Pulsatilla 30).
A few weeks later, I recommended she begin taking a green drink of freshly blended lemon balm(Melissa officinalis) in daily doses of 2-3 liquid ounces with food in addition to her tinctures and homeopathic remedy. In 3 months her T4 was 50% lower at 113, but her TSH was still<0.03. She continued the treatment plan for another 5 months until her THS and T4 were in the normal range. She stopped all herbs and the homeopathic remedy, and her endocrinologist declared her cured.
Maude Grieve, in her extensive section on nettles, discusses, somewhat cryptically, the use of powdered nettle seeds as a treatment for goiter. There is no easy access to corroborating references or a case history. I know of only one anecdotal report where a young woman claimed to have cured her goiter with nettle seeds. It was not at all clear as to what type of goiter was treated.
Diet
Hypothyroidism does not respond to any particular herbs that I know of, in either a hopeful or remedial manner. Seaweed therapy with a strong fresh green vegetable diet, particularly chickweed, dandelion, parsley, spinach, and beet greens, seems to be the best. Brassicas are probably best kept to a minimum because of their known goitrogenic activity.
I usually recommend reduction to little or no flour products in an effort to reduce erratic iodine intake and to reduce bromine intake, as well as reduce the hyperglycemia that often accompanies the eating of flour products and simple sugars. It is also recommended to eliminate sugars except in fresh fruit. All non-organic meat and meat products are contraindicated since xenoestrogens can disrupt thyroid function just as intrinsic estrogens generated by the patient’s body. I usually suggest elimination of all dairy products, except unsalted organic butter, to further reduce exposure to growth hormones and iodine and unwanted tetracycline residues. I usually recommend eating avocados, organic eggs, and sardines to provide quality fats to keep bile flowing and wasted thyroid hormones moving out of the liver.
Dietary Blood and Blood Products
All blood will contain some thyroid binding globulin-bound thyroid hormone. The consumption of red meat will always provide small but significant sources of extrinsic thyroid hormone and, at the least, some dietary iodine. In areas of endemic goiter (for example, continental Eurasia), blood products, such as blood sausage, are regularly consumed. The blood from slaughtered animals is carefully caught when the animals are bled. Blood pudding and blood sausages are still regularly served in traditional Irish Breakfasts and are regularly available in meat shops throughout Great Britain, the European Union, and eastern Europe. Blood pudding and blood sausage are folk treatments for fatigue and sluggishness. I assume that T4 is the active constituent after iron.
In his privately published memoir, Of Desert Plants and Peoples, Sam Hicks writes about the use of fresh deer blood by indigenous peoples in the Sonoran Desert to treat what reads like hypothyroidism. The dosages were about a pint or more of fresh deer blood biweekly or monthly, just about right for time-release T4. For meat-eating patients, I definitely prescribe bloody organic meat and organic blood sausage. For hypothyroid patients, blood can be caught from home-grown and slaughtered animals known to have no growth hormones or pesticide exposure.
