Breastfeeding is as important for your baby as it is for mom. The process is designed to ensure survival of the human race and is thus woven into your genes and your baby's genes in a multitude of ways -- perfected over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. No baby formula on earth can begin to approximate the benefits from your milk or the...

It is a national tragedy that our food supply is contaminated with PCBs (courtesy of Monsanto, Westinghouse, General Electric, and others) and the rocket ignition fuel compound known as perchlorate (courtesy of the military). Both toxins accumulate in breast tissue and find their way into breast milk. Furthermore, PCBs cross the placenta during pregnancy....

Substance P is intimately involved with pain, anxiety, and poor mood. Substance P is the main way your body processes pain and intense stress. Under routine stress, your body simply turns up the volume knob on nerve activity and energy production and when the stress is over, everything is supposed to recover. Substance P is not used as a basic coping...

Once you make it through the first two weeks after pregnancy then you simply need to keep track of the demands on you versus your ability to recover. Nutrition plays a role in its ability to help you have more energy, greater stress tolerance, and natural thyroid support. All of these issues are fully covered on the Prenatal Nutrition topic pages, and the...

Leptin is a hormone that comes from your stored body fat. It controls your metabolism, including the function of thyroid hormone. It controls your body weight. Women have a higher percentage of body fat than men, and thus higher levels of leptin even when not pregnant. This is specifically so that women have enough energy reserves to sustain pregnancy and...

If you are struggling with body weight prior to pregnancy you are wrestling with an inefficient leptin system that will invariably increase the risk for problems during and following pregnancy. Whenever possible, you should be at a proper body weight for at least six months prior to getting pregnant. Minimally, you should have weight issues trending...

The myopic public health machine is clinging to their anti-viral drugs and future experimental vaccines as their great hope for minimizing a potential Swine flu pandemic. It is a paradigm of assistance that woefully falls short. What the public really needs is credible immune system information that not only helps overcome the fear of this flu, but also...

Glaucoma is a leading cause of blindness, a gradual deterioration of the optic nerve that often “sneaks up” on a person. A new study says that patients who have glaucoma also have a 38% higher rate of thyroid problems.

In 1994, with the discovery of leptin, the view of white adipose tissue was transformed from a warehouse whose primary role was the storage of extra calories into one of the most important endocrine organs in the human body. The explosion in leptin-related research, now involving over 16,000 studies, is a testament to the emerging reality that leptin...

It is well established in the scientific literature that subclinical hypothyroid as well as frank hypothyroid are associated with increased levels of total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and lipoprotein(a).

Early impairment of nerve-related function is a clear risk for developing later-life obesity, so concludes new research published in the British Journal of Medicine.

There are many well-known symptoms of a struggling thyroid such as low energy and slow metabolism. However, here are some early signs that your thyroid is not functioning optimally.

Thyroxin regulates BDNF expression to promote survival of injured neurons.

Selenium supplementation in patients with autoimmune thyroiditis decreases thyroid peroxidase antibodies concentrations.

Thyroid and the environment

Cytochrome P4501A1 expression, polychlorinated biphenyls and hydroxylated metabolites, and adipocyte size of bottlenose dolphins from the Southeast United States.

Autoimmune thyroid disorders

Selenium status, sex hormones, and thyroid function in young women.