Thyroid and Skeletal Health

Many people are concerned about getting enough calcium on a carnivore diet because some people feel better without dairy. I address the fear-mongering about osteoporosis and the newly minted condition of osteopenia invented in 1992 in my book Good Fat is Good for Women: Menopause. Drug companies have used osteoporosis to sell hormones to menopausal women since they could no longer hide that hormone drugs increased some cancers. They started directing this propaganda at women as young as thirty in the 1990s.Strong bones need a good diet. Protein and minerals make bones. In Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, Tiny Tim has rickets because his family is poor, and he doesn't get much protein. Charles Dickens wrote that malnutrition in the young was caused by rickets. Milk has always been a cheaper source of protein than meat. Protein enhances the intestinal absorption of minerals, including calcium. A meta-analysis of research into bone mineral density from 2015 concluded that neither increased dietary nor calcium supplementation had little effect on bone density and was unlikely to translate into clinically meaningful reductions in fractures. This study came out after people gobbling calcium supplements developed cardiovascular issues, kidney stones, and constipation. So doctors backpedaled and told their patients to get calcium from their diet. It is a mistake to focus on a single nutrient. The body doesn't work that way.

But how does the thyroid affect bone and connective tissue health? As an osteopath, I have had many patients coming to me with scoliosis, for which they, unfortunately, wore braces as children. Several older ones in Europe had invasive surgery. All but one of these patients were women. Mothers have brought their daughters to me, all on the cusp of adolescence, concerned about the lateral curves in their daughters' spines. Scoliosis in children or adolescents is a symptom of childhood hypothyroidism.

An unscientific explanation is that the spine collapses onto itself out of fatigue. The spine's 24 small vertebrae are stacked on top of each other. When they bend to the side or side bend, the vertebrae must rotate onto each other, squeezing the discs in between. This causes back pain but can also interfere with nutrition reaching the bony vertebral tissue and the discs in between, which can eventually cause vertebral fusion or ankylosing spondylitis. Ligaments hold the spine together, with the shoulder girdle at the top and the pelvic girdle at the bottom. The spine hangs between the two girdles in a controlled suspension, with the spinal, cervical, dorsal, and lumbar curves existing to absorb gravity when we walk on two legs.

Another symptom of hypothyroidism is ligamentous laxity. That is when joints can move past their normal range of movement. Ligaments aren't stretchy like tendons. Instead, they anchor bones to other bones. Their range of motion is particular. But if they repeatedly move past that specific range of motion, you can have joint pain, and bones can move out of place too easily. If you knock a bone out of place, your rib, your hip, or the vertebrae in your neck, you risk compressing nerves and blood vessels in the immediate area.

There are specific illnesses related to hyper-mobility, including Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which is also associated with low thyroid function. Hyper-mobility can cause pain, numbness, tingling, muscle spasms, and frequent injuries. In addition, low thyroid function often causes

neuropathy, or nerve pain, which may be related to hyper-mobility or hypersensitivity seen with fibromyalgia.

As an osteopath, I recommend the carnivore diet for skeletal and spinal health. The nutrients in animal proteins and fat ensure adequate minerals for bone mineralization and protein and vitamin D for collagen formation. Bones are made up of 65 percent mineralized collagen, which gives bones their solid structure, and 35 percent collagen tissue shaped like a crisscrossed protein similar to a beehive. Plant anti-nutrients and excess carbohydrates leach the minerals necessary for collagen and bone formation. Cholesterol is the precursor of Vitamin D, so a diet low in animal fat inhibits Vitamin D3 synthesis, which is imperative for bone density, and thyroid hormone regulates this synthesis.

But what if they have low thyroid function? The optimum nutrition from a carnivore diet will help because it provides all the necessary nutrients for bone formation. However, diet may not be

enough if a person has low thyroid function. Skeletal maturation depends on thyroid hormone. Spongy baby bones get hard and compact from a repeated layering of bone cells. This lengthy process usually finishes at age 25, but most of it takes place between the time a child is five and adolescence. Sometimes, children's bones don't harden completely.

The extreme of this would be someone whose bones are so fragile they are constantly breaking, like the Samuel Jackson character in the movie Unbreakable. Children with low thyroid function won't grow as tall as possible and may suffer ligamentous laxity with frequent joint dislocations. If children are properly diagnosed, they can often catch up with treatment. They can have growth spurts, and their bones can harden adequately. However, adults may be at continued risk of fracture even when treated. According to a large Danish study of middle-aged

people, both treated and untreated middle-aged adults, were still at risk. Yet they were treated with a synthetic T4 medication, not natural desiccated thyroid, which provides not only the active T3 hormone but also calcitonin, and diet is not discussed.

Bone remodeling occurs all our lives. Like skin, bone tissue regenerates constantly, not only with fractures and breakages but also with micro-damage that happens with regular activity. Just walking or bouncing up and down will stimulate remodeling. Doctors tell everyone over 40 to exercise. However, exercise will only work with adequate nutrition; exercise and nutrition will only work with enough thyroid hormone. Thyroid hormone regulates bone formation and bone remodeling. It regulates osteoclasts, the bone cells involved in bone resorption, when old bone is broken down into minerals, which are then turned into new bone by osteoblasts. Of course, you must have minerals, protein, and vitamin D in the mix. But Vitamin D has to be activated in the liver and the kidneys, something t3 regulates.T3 also stimulates the production of osteoblasts, which are the cells that form new bone, as well as the synthesis of collagen from an alkaline phosphatase, essential in bone formation.

Calcitonin is another thyroid hormone. It controls calcium and phosphate levels. It does this by inhibiting the activity of the osteoclasts, the cells that break down bone. People without thyroids can't make calcitonin. Calcitonin is not converted from T4. It is one of the several substances in natural desiccated thyroid. Bone formation involves breaking down and building up. It is carefully regulated and requires good nutrition and adequate minerals. I say adequate because it needs what you can best absorb, only a few of what you can't. A smaller amount of minerals with optimum absorption is better than a ton with inadequate absorption.

Humans had strong bones before the invention of agriculture. An increase in carbohydrates will always mean a decrease in protein. High-protein diets are associated with more bone mass and fewer fractures because carbohydrates are inflammatory, decreasing absorption. More animal protein, not plant protein, is related to reduced bone mass and more fractures, which means more insulin-like growth factors, increasing bone mineralization. Low thyroid levels reduce bone mineralization. We have recently seen a decrease in animal fat in our diets because medicine tells us to avoid it. But literally, animal fat is the only natural source of vitamin D3. I have concluded that a carnivore diet with a good amount of fat gives you everything you need to have strong bones, no matter how old. You don't need dairy as a part of your diet. It can be inflammatory and is not necessary for calcium.