Revisiting the Importance of Supporting Thyroid Health with Essential Oils

The Critical Importance of a Healthy Thyroid Gland

The health of our thyroid gland is critical due to how it impacts almost all of our physiological processes. It helps to regulate our metabolism, emotions, brain function, heart rate, muscle contraction, cholesterol levels, liver function, and more.

This means that if thyroid disease is untreated, it can result in a wide-range of disorders and health concerns. These include cardiovascular diseases, osteoporosis, pregnancy complications, infertility, and mood imbalances.

Thankfully, it is possible to support thyroid health through lifestyle practices and holistic tools that optimize healthy hormone balance. Additionally, individualized and appropriate treatment from integrative medical professionals is often most beneficial when dealing with the thyroid and other complex endocrine issues.

In this video recap, I want to highlight one of my favorite modalities for thyroid health, essential oils. I will review how our favorite aromatic allies can help to address underlying triggers and causes of thyroid deregulation and alleviate some of the symptoms.

As always, all the resources and references will be available within this accompanying article and in the resource section.

 

More on Thyroid Disorders

Why should we care so much about the thyroid gland?

First, as noted above, thyroid hormones have systemic-wide effects. Due to the fact that the thyroid impacts so many areas of the body, symptoms are vast. This means a poorly regulated thyroid could be contributing to various disorders with many not being aware that it is a factor. For example, when is the last time your heart doc checked your thyroid?

Furthermore, the American Thyroid Association estimates that 12% of the U.S. population will develop a thyroid condition in their lifetime. That’s 20 million people! Concerningly, 60% of those with thyroid disease are unaware of their endocrine gland dysfunction.

When we discuss primary thyroid disorders, there are two main categories. These include a low functioning thyroid (hypothyroidism) and an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism). Autoimmune diseases of the thyroid, which include Hashimoto’s disease and Grave’s disease, can be the cause of hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism respectfully. Essential oils can be used to balance the thyroid and help with many of the symptoms of these disorders.

 

Essential Oils and Thyroid Health

Previously, I recorded a podcast on the Essential Oil Revolution on how essential oils can be used to help to mitigate some of the underlying triggers of thyroid dysfunction and manage the symptoms.

Due to their many physiological properties, they can also help to restore balance to the body by addressing other unknown or often missed contributors to thyroid disruption. This is based on how essential oils:

• Modulate the immune system and inflammation.
• Support several enzymes that help the body detoxify.
• Act as antioxidants, protecting cellular and mitochondrial health.
• Are neuroprotective, preserving cognitive function.
• Are antimicrobial, antiviral, and antifungal, aiding in mitigating stealth infections that can accumulate from immune compromise.
• Impact neurotransmitters to assist with mood balance.
• Aid digestion, assimilation, elimination, and a healthy microbiome.
• Modulate stress, cortisol, hormones, and resulting blood sugar issues.
• Support vagal tone, enhancing parasympathetic activity and optimizing autonomic physiological functioning.
• Enhance our emotional health (psychoaromatherapy) through their biochemical properties, influence on neuroplasticity, and how they shift brain electrical activity.

Essential oils can directly impact the thyroid by modulating stress. When the body is in an alarm state and pumping out cortisol, it downregulates the secretion of thyroid stimulating hormone and the conversion to active thyroid hormone. By inhaling soothing oils such as lavender, frankincense, citrus oils, and bergamot, one can help to balance thyroid levels that could get hijacked by overwhelm.

Furthermore, essential oils can modulate other hormones which interplay with thyroid health. Oils such as bergamot, lavender, ylang ylang, rose geranium, clary sage, neroli, and jasmine all have been shown to have a positive impact on hormonal symptoms and balance. (Bergamot, lavender, and ylang ylang also help vagal nerve tone.)

Additionally, essential oils can impact immunity which can benefit autoimmune thyroid disease. For example, essential oils can help the immune response of those with mold-related illness, support the microbiome, signal antibodies, and balance overall immune activity.

Check out the podcast for more information on using essential oils for thyroid health. Additional topics include:

• Thyroid lab testing and its caveats
• The interaction between estrogen, cortisol, and thyroid health
• How hormones interact with brain health
• The gut-thyroid-mood link
• A list of popular essential oils for common hypothyroid and hyperthyroid symptoms including pain, inflammation, skin issues, digestive disturbances, detoxification problems, and anxiety
• Naturopathic and functional medicine support for thyroid disorders

Click here to listen to the full episode and get the detailed show notes here.

 

Clinical Studies on Thyroid Health and Essential Oils

One exciting area I also want to share about are the clinical studies on using essential oils for supporting the thyroid gland.

Recently, I watched a researcher review her study on YouTube. It assessed a blend of essential oils for aiding fatigue in women with hypothyroidism. This study had great applicability in the real world. It was a randomized-placebo trial that incorporated a blend of mints, citrus, and spices smelled for 15 minutes per day by the participants. Importantly, the trial found that the blend decreased subjective measures of fatigue. In other words, besides improvements in labs, the patients actually felt better.

I have the full abstract below.

 

An Essential Oil Blend for Fatigue in Hypothyroid Patients

Abstract:

• Background: This randomized, blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial identifies the effect of an aromatherapy blend of essential oils on fatigue, which is one of the most commonly unaddressed symptoms of hypothyroidism, by evaluating the effects of daily aromatherapy inhalation.
• Methods: Participants included women aged 18-55 with a diagnosis of hypothyroidism. Women who had a history of thyroid cancer were excluded, due to the confounding effects of cancer on fatigue as the outcome of interest. Participants were randomized into two groups: the aromatherapy group, treated with inhalation of the essential oil blend, and the control group, treated with an odorless vegetable oil blend. The primary outcome was change from baseline in fatigue scores as measured by the Multidimensional Fatigue Symptom Inventory (MFSI), a validated instrument which measures multiple patterns of fatigue.
• Results: After adjusting for baseline scores, no significant difference was found between the aromatherapy group and the control group at midpoint. Both groups experienced a reduction in symptoms during the first week of the intervention. At the endpoint, participants in the aromatherapy group had improved fatigue scores across all ten subscales, as compared to the control group. Not all improvements achieved statistical significance, indicating that the aromatherapy treatment has a greater effect on the subscales of global, affective, and general fatigue.
• Conclusions: This is the first study to evaluate the effects of aromatherapy on fatigue among women with hypothyroidism. These findings provide evidence that regular inhalation of an aromatherapy blend may reduce fatigue among women with hypothyroidism, particularly in the areas of global, affective, and general fatigue.

Additional details of the study:

• The blend contained mainly peppermint oil, but clove, black pepper, white grapefruit, and bergamot oils were also mixed in.
• The participants used an inhaler stick with three drops of the blend in which they inhaled daily for 15 minutes between 1-3 pm for 14 days.

 

Clary Sage for Enhancing Mood, Calming Cortisol, and Modulating the Thyroid in Menopausal Women

Another small study demonstrated an essential oil for improving thyroid markers, cortisol, and mood based on their correlation with a specific questionnaire. The oil was clary sage.

Here’s the abstract:

• The purpose of this study was to examine the antidepressant-like effects of clary sage oil on human beings by comparing the neurotransmitter level change in plasma.
• The voluntary participants were 22 menopausal women in 50’s.
• Subjects were classified into normal and depression tendency groups using each of Korean version of Beck Depression Inventory-I (KBDI-I), KBDI-II, and Korean version of Self-rating Depression Scale.
• Then, the changes in neurotransmitter concentrations were compared between two groups.
• After inhalation of clary sage oil, cortisol levels were significantly decreased while 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) concentration was significantly increased.
• Thyroid stimulating hormone was also reduced in all groups but not statistically significantly.
• The different change rate of 5-HT concentration between normal and depression tendency groups was variable according to the depression measurement inventory. When using KBDI-I and KBDI-II, 5-HT increased by 341% and 828% for the normal group and 484% and 257% for the depression tendency group, respectively.
• The change rate of cortisol was greater in depression tendency groups compared with normal groups, and this difference was statistically significant when using KBDI-II (31% vs. 16% reduction) and Self-rating Depression Scale inventory (36% vs. 8.3% reduction).
• Among three inventories, only KBDI-II differentiated normal and depression tendency groups with significantly different cortisol level.
• Finally, clary sage oil has antidepressant-like effect, and KBDI-II inventory may be the most sensitive and valid tool in screening for depression status or severity.

 

Knowing When to Contact a Thyroid Expert

Oftentimes, when one has a thyroid disorder, it is best to find a specialist that can help to navigate the complexity of the delicate interconnections of the endocrine system. In a recent episode of the Essential Oil Revolution, I was honored to be joined by one of my go-to thyroid experts and specialists, Dr. Hedberg, DC, DABCI, DACBN.

Dr. Hedberg is an internationally esteemed, evidence-based, research-oriented, and holistic, functional medicine and chiropractic physician with over 20 years of clinical experience. He is also a lecturer, presenter, formulator, author, educator, and podcast host.

Dr. Hedberg excels at helping his patients and the practitioners he mentors to find the underlying causes of thyroid disorders and other complex diseases. He then uses his detailed understanding of nutrition, lifestyle, natural hormones, herbal medicine, and proper supplementation to address them.

During the show, Dr. Hedberg:

• reviewed his functional and integrative approach to thyroid health
• highlighted all the interwoven and intricate connections between the thyroid and our overall wellness
• touched upon underlying causes of thyroid disease that are often overlooked and unknown, including infections, dietary factors, nutrient deficiencies, genetics, detoxification, and more
• his approach to healing the thyroid and how essential oils play a role

You can listen to this empowering and informative podcast here and access the detailed show notes here.

You won’t want to miss it!

 

Summary of How Essential Oils Support Thyroid Health

The health of our thyroid gland is vital for the regulation of many body processes. Furthermore, an imbalance in thyroid hormones can cause a wide-range of disorders. Essential oils aid thyroid health by assisting with underlying physiological imbalances and triggers of thyroid dysfunction. They also help to alleviate various symptoms. Whenever complex endocrine issues arise, such as a thyroid disorder, it is important to consult with an expert that can navigate all the interwoven connections of our hormonal mileu.

So, there you have it.

I’d love to hear your feedback on what you learned about thyroid health and essential oils. Please post below!

Thank you so much for taking the time to learn how to nurture your mind, body, heart, and soul.

Sending you many blessings.

 

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Resources on Thyroid Health:

• Essential Oils for Thyroid Health (Ep. 420 from the Essential Oils Revolution podcast with references)
• Thyroid Function Tests and General Information (American Thyroid Association)
• Mind-Body-Heart Medicine: Using Essential Oils for Healthy Hearts (Ep. 403 from the Essential Oils Revolution podcast with references)
• So You Have Hypothyroidism, Now What? (My article with references)
• How Essential Oils Directly Aid Detoxification and Cleansing and Protect Us from Harmful Toxins (My article with references)
• Optimizing Thyroid Health and Healing Thyroid Disease Using Evidence-Based Integrative and Functional Medicine with Dr. Nikolas Hedberg, DC, DABCI, DACBN (Ep.422 from the Essential Oils Revolution podcast with references)
• Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis Natural Treatment (Dr. Hedberg)
• Changes in 5-hydroxytryptamine and cortisol plasma levels in menopausal women after inhalation of clary sage oil [published correction appears in Phytother Res. 2014 Dec;28(12):1897]. Phytother Res. 2014;28(11):1599-1605. doi:10.1002/ptr.5163
• A randomized placebo-controlled clinical trial. J Complement Integr Med. 2019;17(1):/j/jcim.2019.17.issue-1/jcim-2018-0229/jcim-2018-0229.xml. Published 2019 Aug 22. doi:10.1515/jcim-2018-0229