There are a few foods that you should be eating daily if you want better thyroid function.
Ginger is one of those foods.
Here’s why you should eat it every day:
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#1. It Can Reduce Your Thyroid Symptoms
Do you have normal thyroid lab tests with continued low thyroid symptoms? Ginger is here to help.
One study showed that 500 mg of ginger powder, twice per day, led to better symptom control in weight gain, cold intolerance, constipation, dry skin, appetite, memory loss, concentration, and dizziness when compared to a placebo.
It also led to a decrease in body weight, waist circumference, TSH, and cholesterol!
How’s that for a simple food/spice that you can add to your diet?
Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/2022/5456855
#2. It Can Help You Lose Weight
Ginger contains compounds like gingerol and shogaol, which act as thermogenics to increase how many calories you burn at rest.
And other compounds found in ginger can help regulate blood sugar and even help control your appetite.
This is amazing for the 80% of thyroid patients who struggle with weight gain.
Is it a magical weight loss food? No, but if you eat it for thyroid support and it happens to help you lose weight, would you be upset? I didn’t think so.
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29393665/
#3. It Protects Your Thyroid Gland
You may not realize it, but simply creating thyroid hormone results in the production of highly reactive compounds (ROS).
And if these compounds aren’t neutralized, they will damage your thyroid.
This is why it’s so important for thyroid patients to get as many antioxidants as possible from their diet. Ginger happens to be one of these.
Not only can it help protect against thyroid hormone-induced damage, it also protects against environmentally harmful compounds like BPA.
Protecting your thyroid gland is priority #1 if you want it to stay healthy.
Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK565886/
#4. It Can Reduce Inflammation
What’s the #1 cause of hypothyroidism? If you answered Hashimoto’s, you’d be correct.
This condition causes temporary and then permanent thyroid gland damage from prolonged inflammation in the thyroid gland.
Ginger can slow down or even halt this process by reducing proinflammatory cytokines and by increasing glutathione.
This makes it perfect for all thyroid conditions, but especially the autoimmune varieties like Hashimoto’s and Graves’ disease (the #1 case of both hypo & hyperthyroidism, respectively).
Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33458848/
#5. It Supports Gut Health & T3 Hormone Recycling
20% of circulating T3 in your body is created in your gut. On top of this, it also helps store and recycle thyroid hormones.
But up to 80% of thyroid patients suffer from gut conditions like low stomach acid, which impair these processes.
Ginger can stimulate digestive enzymes, helping you break down your food and improve thyroid hormone recycling and thyroid medication absorption.
Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7940200/
Want to add more ginger to your diet? Here are 3 easy ways to do just that:
- Add some to tea (1 teaspoon).
- Use grated ginger in smoothies or soups (1 teaspoon).
- Cook with ginger powder as a spice or take it as a supplement (500-1,000 mg).
If there’s one spice you need more of as a thyroid patient, it’s ginger.
