We’re taking a slight detour from our articles on antioxidants and water. This Friday, we’ll get back into it, and reveal some surprising things.
In the meantime, I’d like to introduce a special guest for today’s article. His name’s Yegyan (pronounced like “Yee-John”) and he ran a holistic health practice where he coached men and women to help them reclaim their healthy bodies and minds.
Oftentimes, Yegyan’s clients came to him as a last resort, after their doctors, nutritionists, personal trainers, and other advisors couldn’t help. Their ages and backgrounds were all over the map. Some were young athletic men…others were pain-ridden grandmothers. But they all had one thing in common: They worked with Yegyan to overcome hidden health problems to attain their fitness goals. Over the years, some of his most successful clients, he’s honored to call friends today.
In today’s article, he reveals a hidden threat to your health, which very few people know about…
Know anyone who has these symptoms?:
- Fatigue
- Increased sensitivity to cold
- Constipation
- Dry skin
- Muscle weakness
- Muscle aches, tenderness, and stiffness
- Pain, stiffness, or swelling in your joints
- Impaired memory and concentration.
If so, there’s a good chance they were diagnosed with hypothyroidism.
About 4.6 percent of Americans are diagnosed with it.
But there is another simple deficiency that is far easier to correct. And its symptoms are as follows:
- Fatigue
- Cold hands and feet
- Constipation
- Pale skin
- General weakness
- Pain in the legs when walking
- Poor concentration and memory.
See any similarities?
This is an iron deficiency. Low iron causes very similar symptoms to hypothyroidism.
When I had my holistic practice, I can’t tell you how many women came in telling me they were diagnosed with hypothyroidism even though their blood tests showed normal thyroid levels!
Whenever I see this, my first thought is to check for iron deficiency.
A simple blood test will determine this.
If it’s an iron deficiency, you can save yourself a lot of heartache. It’s a lot easier (and less expensive) to fix an iron deficiency than it is to correct hypothyroidism.
Usually, a person diagnosed with hypothyroidism is forced to take medication for years, if not the rest of their life.
But it could easily be something as simple as iron.
One hidden cause of iron deficiency is a lack of hydrochloric acid production.
Your stomach produces hydrochloric acid. It’s the only organ in your body that does.
Hydrochloric acid, also called HCL, is an acid that your body uses to break down proteins in the digestive process.
This is especially true for cooked proteins. Amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, are very long molecule chains. And when you cook them, those molecule chains ball up.
Hydrochloric acid unravels them back into their original state.
Then digestive enzymes start to break them apart so they can be used by your cells.
When your stomach lining gets too thin, less HCL is produced. This can even lead to a condition called hypochloridia.
When we cannot break down protiens in our digestive tract, we cannot absorb iron.
That is also why people who take iron supplements report a lot of digestive discomfort. They don’t have enough HCL, and this is preventing the iron from being used.
Often, I have found that correcting HCL production resolves the iron deficiency problem as well the hypothyroidism symptoms.
As a side note, people who are on the paleo or a low-carb diet often complain they get constipated, bloat, and digest slowly. This is partly due to not having enough HCL to properly break down the protein they are eating. Since starches and carbohydrates hydrate your colon, they aid in elimination. Without these, digestion can slow to a crawl.
The supplement to take to increase your HCL levels is called betaine HCL.
You want to look for a pharmaceutical-grade supplement. The quality will make a big difference.
You want to take betaine in the middle of your meal and refrain from drinking liquids when you eat. Take a few bites of your meal, take the betaine, and continue eating.
By drinking liquids during your meal, you dilute the HCL as well as your digestive enzymes and they don’t work as well. You can take a sip of water to swallow your supplements in the middle of your meal, but no more than that. Refrain from drinking liquids for 30 minutes to an hour after your meal as well.
When your HCL levels are restored, you may notice an increase in mental sharpness, alertness, and concentration (most likely due to the increase in iron) as well as a noticable difference in how fast your food digests.
You can feel the food passing through easier and faster. It will not feel like it is sitting there for a long time.
The best news is that your stomach lining repairs itself over time. You will know this because when you take the betaine, you will feel a warm flush in your stomach area. It is not a burning or uncomfortable sensation. It is best described as a warm flush..
Eventually, you will find that taking one capsule of betaine will produce this warm flush. That is when you can stop taking it.
Coming back to the begining of this article, hypothyroid symptoms, low-iron symptoms as well as indigestion problems can ALL be rooted in low HCL levels.
Until next time,
Yegyan
Living Well Daily Contributor
References:
Hypothyroidism symptoms:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/hypothyroidism/basics/symptoms/con-20021179
About 4.6 percent of Americans are diagnosed with hypothyroidism:
Golden SH, Robinson KA, Saldanha I, Anton B, Ladenson PW. Prevalence and incidence of endocrine and metabolic disorders in the United States: a comprehensive review. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. 2009;94(6):1853–1878.
Anemia symptoms:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/anemia/basics/symptoms/con-20026209
