The 11 Best Vitamins for Thyroid Issues

Your thyroid is dependent on a wide range of nutrients, micronutrients, and macronutrients, and getting the right ones, in the right amounts, is a big part of maintaining your overall thyroid health. In this article, I want to take you through:

• Thyroid health and supplements
• How thyroid health is interconnected with nutrients
• How proper supplementation can play a key role

We’ll also cover how targeted, specific nutrients can make a big difference, as well as the common ones that you may want to avoid. All things considered, let’s dive right in!

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Table of Contents

Essential Nutrients for Thyroid Function
Best Supplements for Thyroid Health
How To Choose The Right Supplements
The Right Mix is Essential

Essential Nutrients for Thyroid Function

The perfect place to start is with iodine. It’s kind of unusual that this single nutrient has such a profound effect on one specific thing in the body. There aren’t many other examples like that, but it’s exactly the case for iodine and your thyroid.

Iodine basically has one big central role, with everything else being secondary to it. And when the amounts that we require are so small and precise, that only adds to the complexity, with iodine being the only nutrient with such a small therapeutic window.

It’s no surprise that the genetics that correspond to the risk of thyroid disease also happen to align with those affecting iodine metabolism. Essentially, if you’re already prone to thyroid disease, you truly can’t handle excesses of iodine. Even a little bit can be harmful.

In the modern world, we get food from all sorts of geographic regions, as well as a wide array of food types. This means that iodine deficiency for adults in the modern world is exceedingly rare and all but vanished. Regardless of our diets, we get plenty of iodine.

The main thing I want you to take away from this is that iodine is essentially everywhere, so you need to be aware of it. More than that, though, you need to be careful that you’re not ingesting so many sources of iodine that you risk going into excess.

Selenium and Thyroid

Following iodine, selenium, and its relationship to your thyroid is the next most important thing that we need to cover. We kind of have the opposite problem with selenium than with iodine, that many people can be low in it.

While selenium can be found in a wide range of whole foods, going on more restrictive diets may lead to missing out on the amounts that you need. Not consuming nuts or grains, or avoiding a lot of animal foods, can be a leading cause of selenium deficiency.

Selenium helps to control how much thyroid hormone we make, how well it leaves the thyroid, and how it is used in all the various parts of the body.

The interesting part is knowing that selenium in supplements and selenium in the diet play different roles based on different chemical pathways. This adds a layer of complexity because it emphasizes that we need to get selenium in different ways.

It is possible to get too much selenium in supplementation, somewhere around 400 micrograms per day, so that’s something we need to keep in mind. That said, excess in the diet is pretty unlikely, due to a lack of truly dense sources of selenium.

Zinc and Copper

These are both important nutrients, but what’s perhaps more important is the balance required between the two of them.

Zinc is a big part of the deiodinase enzymes. These are the enzymes that regulate iodine in the body, and encourage proper breakdown of thyroid hormone and usage therein.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D plays a big role in regulating the immune response, helping to minimize autoimmune reactions. It also helps to ensure that the body is repairing connective tissues effectively.

In North America, the rates of people being low in vitamin D are quite high. And, like a lot of nutrients, getting too much vitamin D can take away the benefits of it entirely.

Enough is good, but more than enough is counterproductive.

Iron

The thing about iron is that it’s a bit of an outlier. Some people need it badly, but others do not. If you don’t need it, there’s not a lot of danger in taking it in the short term. But there really isn’t any benefit, and there can be risks if you take it on a long-term basis.

Knowing your iron status is kind of the main takeaway here. If you’re low in it, then you can take steps toward correcting that. Mainly, though, you simply should have a sense of where you stand — and then correct for it, if it’s an issue.

Vitamin A

Vitamin A is critical for something called thyroid cell signalling. This is a big part of how your thyroid responds to thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), which is a signal from the pituitary gland telling the thyroid to get to work.

Those who are low in active forms of vitamin A may not respond properly to those signals.

Magnesium

This is important for thyroid hormone utilization, as well as helping to offset some of the negative symptoms like fatigue. Some papers have shown that up to half of adults may be low in magnesium at any given point in time.

Vitamins B12 and B1

B vitamins are critical because they are such a big part of maintaining energy output, offsetting brain fog, and maintaining mental energy. They’re also important because many with thyroid disease can have autoimmune conditions that make them not absorb B12 properly.

Vitamin E

This one is important for helping prevent damage to the thyroid cells from oxidative stress.

Omega-3 Fats

Another good essential nutrient that plays a big part in how we make the compounds that regulate the inflammation in the body.

Best Supplements for Thyroid Health

Whether you’re struggling with thyroid issues or looking to optimize your overall thyroid health, here are some of the big considerations you should look out for in your supplements:

• Bioavailability – These are forms that can get into the body more effectively and can be used more easily by the body.
• Combination Formulas – Those that are specific for thyroid needs with synergistic nutrients, because they create the most precise mix for your needs.
• Unnecessary Elements – Things like colors, flavoring compounds, or unnecessary additives can all worsen symptoms in those who are sensitive to them.
• Third-Party Testing – This helps ensure that the purity and potency are where you want them, with the safety to match.

On the flipside, here are some of the top things to avoid in vitamins and supplements:

• Extra Iodine – Any supplements that have iodine for those with thyroid disease, there is almost never room for them. And there is often extra in them.
• Synthetic Versus Natural – Especially as it concerns what are known as folate compounds, we want naturally occurring methylfolate.
• High-Dose B Vitamins – There’s more data saying that high amounts of B vitamins, which are very common, can be problematic for those prone to thyroid disease.
• High-Dose Manganese – Higher than 3 milligrams of manganese can be troublesome. We need it, but we often get plenty in our everyday diets.

And some final guidance when it comes to the best vitamins for thyroid issues, consider these some of the best practices that you can take with you:

• Avoiding Overlap – Ensuring that your ingredients don’t overlap can be powerful because it means you’re avoiding overdoing it.
• Total Pill Count – If your pill count gets too high, then the rate of your sticking with it and keeping a regular cadence gets lower and lower.

How To Choose The Right Supplements

The first thing I can recommend is to work with a good practitioner. There are many out there who can offer guidance and give you personalized advice when you need it.

I’ve seen the value of that firsthand. That’s why I put together a little quiz to help add a layer of customization to your needs. I hope you’ll check it out.

If you take the quiz, you’ll get a personalized recommendation based on your current status and needs. It might just be the perfect first step to understand how you can take back your health.

Beyond that, it helps to be aware of dosage and timing. Understanding how your supplements need to be taken with one another, or in addition to thyroid medication, is critical.

And then you may want to think through your symptoms. Do you have symptoms that need addressing? Those might influence what you’re taking, too.

The Right Mix is Essential

Before we go, I want you to know one thing: The right mix of nutrients can change the game when it comes to your health, but the wrong mix can slow you down.

And that momentum is important. That’s why I’m such an advocate for getting your head around this topic and how it can help you:

• Manage your symptoms
• Heal these issues
• And feel better again

That’s the thing. For nearly everyone with thyroid symptoms, it is possible to feel better through the right mix of nutrients. You just need to know what will move the needle for you.

Again, I’d love for you to take the quiz that I put together. It can help devise a personalized plan to address your needs alongside your thyroid health. Give it a try today.