do high thyroid antibodies really matter in this video I'm going to be explaining what do those really mean should you be worried about them and what you should do about them if yours are high all right so thyroid antibodies these are the tests that someone does to find out if you have Hashimoto's Hashimoto's is an autoimmune thyroid condition it's the most common organ specific autoimmune condition that we know about so autoimmune means that your immune system is attacking you so normally your immune system is patrolling your body looking for viruses and bacteria and stuff like that and and it tolerates your own healthy tissues now in autoimmunity or autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto's your immune system it kind of the taboo for self-tolerance has been broken and so you start to make antibodies so what is an antibody always tell my patients that antibodies are like you know a Post-It note that your immune system is making to stick on to something to monitor it perhaps tag it for Destruction now the thing to know is we all have a little bit of antibodies to a lot of our tissues floating around it's how our immune system does uh surveillance right but when you start to have like a whole pile of antibodies directed towards one thing like your thyroid gland in this case then that's abnormal that is Hashimoto's now the question is in this video is does it matter are high thyroid antibody is really a big deal well they can be I'll explain why so the way it works is is if you do a thyroid antibody test right thyroid thyroid peroxidase antibodies and or thyroglobular antibodies today we'll just talk about thyroid peroxidase uh those antibodies when they're high it means your immune system is targeting your thyroid gland and all things being equal there's a high likelihood that eventually you're going to become overtly hypothyroids let me explain that there's kind of a spectrum of how this works so the first end of the spectrum is what we call euthyroid Hashimoto's and that's built e-u-t-h-y-r-i-d that just means your you have the antibodies but your TSH and your T4 or your T3 the thyroid function tests are normal okay now here's the thing there's a very good chance that over time you thyroid Hashimoto's patients are going to become overtly hypothyroid which means you're going to have it's over the years if you don't do anything enough destruction of your thyroid gland by your immune system that eventually your thyroid function tests are going to become abnormal so the next stage in the Spectrum here explaining why these matter is what we call subclinical and that's kind of a weird terminology but what it means is is you've got the antibodies they're high your TSH is high but the T4 and or T3 are not low okay and that's called subclinical now a large number of people that have subclinical Hashimoto's are going to go on to develop overtly hypothyroid low thyroid Hashimoto's if you don't do something okay now the final stage of the Spectrum in explaining why these antibodies matter is what we call overt hypothyroid or hypothyroid or just Hashimoto's hypothesis there's a lot different names for it and that's when your third antibodies are high your TSH is elevated and now your T4 or T3 are low and usually the person that has that situation is going to have to take thyroid replacement hormones like levothyroxine or or Synthroid because you just can't make enough thyroid hormones anymore and of course there's a whole bunch of symptoms that come along through that Spectrum so things like weight gain and hair loss and anxiety and depression and brain fog and sleep problems and Joint muscle pain those can start when you have you thyroid Hashimoto's you don't have to be overtly hypothyroid to have those symptoms research is pretty clear that all you have to have is the antibodies to feel bad because the antibodies being high is a warning sign it's telling you your immune system is out of balance and one of the big things we now know that you need to do to treat someone appropriately that has this is certainly you have to replace the hormones that's fine but you've also got to find out what their immunophenotype is now what that means is there's kind of advanced testing called lymphocyte immunophenotyping it's just dissecting your immune system and finding out what is your immune system fingerprint yeah you have Hashimoto's but your individual Hashimoto is what's happening okay so our high antibody is a big deal yeah they are because it's a warning sign that something's about to happen now it may not ever happen just to be you know honest with you but it can happen so the other thing that makes these guys a big deal is the higher your antibodies are the more cross reaction can happen so let me explain what that is so cross reaction it's not a good thing cross-reaction occurs when the antibodies you make for one thing in this case your thyroid can stick onto other things that aren't the thyroid gland and so you get an expansion of your autoimmune problem and it's well documented in the research literature and even in my clinical practice that once you have one autoimmune condition it is very likely you're going to get another one if you don't already have another one so in thyroid patients that could be rheumatoid arthritis is the next thing a stomach autoimmune problem it could be Vitiligo it could be there's just a number of things that could happen so the higher those antibodies are the more that cross-reaction can occur so something has to be done whether you're hypothyroid or not if your antibodies are very high then you got to do something to lower those and there are things that you can do to lower it but only if your doctor knows what those are so how high is high well you know there are lab ranges right and remember that lab range is really kind of a statistical creation there's a thing called a standard deviation that most lab ranges are made up of and it basically says hey what is like if we take a thousand people and we all test their thyroid antibodies and none of them have Hashimoto's right um how you know what what is that eighty percent like kind of what fits in that range well anyway I think quest uses something like 30. but here's the thing it does vary some Labs will say uh you know nine in international units per milliliter uh is high there are no functional ranges and a lot of people talk about functional and optimal but here's the thing if you're above that Labs range it's too high if you are borderline on that Labs range it's too high if you're like you know you have some detectable antibodies but they're not above the range I wouldn't worry about it just yet why because we all have some of these antibodies floating around it's normal but it's when you have a bunch of them that's the problem so I'll give you my I uh what is really high right for my money anything above you know 200 300 400 no matter what kind of scale is being used that's very high if you're you know 10 points over that's not that high but here's the thing the level of antibodies doesn't always match up with how you feel I've had patients with antibodies that were Sky High that really didn't feel that bad and I've had other patients whose antibodies were a little bit over and they felt like crap why is that well because they all have their individual immuno phenotype they all have their individual immune system fingerprint they all have their own individual experiences some of these people that have Hashimoto's have other things going on that are collateral damage from the Hashimoto's some people have other metabolic issues besides the Hashimoto's I might have pre-diabetes or blood sugar or all sorts of different nutrient and vitamin deficiencies or gut infections so there isn't a blanket protocol for this just so you guys know and I I again I always caution people against doing self-treatment because it is more complicated than you think and people that are you know giving you books and courses they got to dumb this stuff way down to make it as generic as possible and yeah you know you might do okay but it's better to be working with someone that understands all the stuff I've been talking about so let me wrap this up for you our high thyroid antibodies uh a big deal well yeah usually they are because at some point like let's say like right now you get your antibodies checked and here's the thing most people aren't going to check your antibodies unless you already feel bad anyway and if you get your antibodies checked in you're not overtly hypothyroid yet there's a really good chance you're going to become at some point if you don't do anything about it and I have some other videos on this as well there are things you can do now to be proactive to modulate your immune system try to put out the fires of autoimmunity as best you can waiting and doing nothing means you're very likely going to become hypothyroid now one caveat to me talking about these antibody tests is in kids sometimes in kids you can see a transient elevation of antibodies that then normalizes and it's no big deal nothing happens however I will tell you that if you are a parent that has Hashimoto's you know you have it uh or your antibodies are high and you've got a kid and then their antibodies show up high well that may not be something to ignore because Hashimoto's is extremely heritable it's a very genetic condition so I have other videos on that so here we go antibodies can be a big deal remember that Spectrum we talked about euthyroid subclinical overt but remember this there's things you can do now to prevent the progression but you got to work with someone who knows what those things are okay I'll see you next time