HYPOTHYROIDISM AND ANOREXIA ARE INTERRELATED.
For some, anorexia came first making them hypothyroid, and for others, they had a thyroid issues in which pushed them over the edge in developing an eating disorder. Either or, it is a vicious cycle because both feed into each other.
How?
.
Well if you restrict, your body falls into an energy deficit and starts prioritizing where it needs to send energy. First it will slow digestion, lower body temperature and heart rate. You may get a high at the beginning where you’ll feel like you have tons of energy but that will be your body running off of either 2 things: stress hormones or using up its stores inducing gluconeogenesis. Yes, you will literally be eating away at your own tissues.
.
However, what goes up must come down, and that high will eventually have you drop, and you can develop anxiety/depression, leading into a vicious cycle of not feeling good about yourself and getting addicted to the high of stress hormones from not enough calories.
.
If done for too long, the body will slow down the production of thyroid hormone, and the convergence of T4 to T3, so it can spend most of its energy somewhere else (like your heart beat, brain power, etc.)
A lack of nourishment, nutrients, and safety will typically send any body into a hypothyroid state.
.
On the flip side, individuals who develop hypothyroidism can also later on develop an eating disorder. The reason for this is because low thyroid function can suppress appetite, induce low mood and slow digestion making someone bloated or feel full without realizing. Note here that all cells need active thyroid hormone to function and if we aren’t producing enough or have our cells sensitized to T3 we have an inability to uptake glucose and use it. Without energy, our bodies get stressed sending us into a state in which we start to break down ourselves for it.
.
Conversely, not enough thyroid hormone means we cannot produce adequate progesterone which we need to counter cortisol, cognitive function and more. Add in today’s pressure of trying to be perfect, body dysmorphia is a shoo-in.
.