Dr. Michael Ruscio’s Discussion Of The Gut, Microbiota And Thyroid For Practitioners

Dr. Ruscio is a functional medicine practitioner, researcher and author with a B.S. in exercise kinesiology and a chiropractic degree. He practices Functional Medicine with an emphasis on natural and nutritional solutions. Continue reading to learn straight from Dr. Ruscio more about the how the gut and microbiome affect thyroid hormones and autoimmunity or Kalish Community Members may watch the complete interview HERE. “We all understand the importance of the gut and how it connects to different systems of the body. For example, the gut connects to the thyroid via gut infections and imbalances being able to stimulate autoimmunity. We’ve also all heard that gut inflammation can thwart the conversion of thyroid hormone from T4 to T3. Maybe one of the most overlooked causes of adrenal stress are problems in the gut. This is something I see commonly where someone doesn’t seem to be responsive to adrenal support, because there’s an underlying gut issue that hasn’t been addressed at the root source of the adrenal stress. The gut has very remarkable and far-reaching effects. This is why I’ve put so much focus on it in my clinical practice and in our research. You can see many other conditions improve if you get the health of the gut optimized. When we look at immune cells you can see quite a large density of immune cells in the lining of the intestines. In fact the largest density of immune cells resides in the small intestines. This is likely why we see such a connection between the immune system and the gut. The first 3 years of someone’s life are crucial in the development of the microbiota and the gut. We’re seeing increasing C-sections, formula fed children and children receiving antibiotics early in life. Children that don’t have ample exposure to dirt and animals also really takes a toll. These things are not modifiable once you’re in your 20s or 30s, when you’re taking your health more seriously. After 30, a lot of the formation of the gut and the microbiota has been somewhat sealed.”