Thyroxine is a hormone made by your thyroid gland that affects all of the tissues in your body. The foods that you eat can affect the amount of thyroxine in your body, particularly if you take thyroxine supplements. Talk to your doctor before making significant dietary changes, particularly if you are concerned about thyroid problems.
Thyroxine
Thyroxine is made by your thyroid gland, a butterfly-shaped gland in your neck. Thyroxine is critical for the function of your body because it regulates metabolism. Your metabolism is a measurement of how much energy the different tissues in your body burn. Thyroxine, which is made from the amino acid tyrosine, increases the metabolism of cells in your body. Low levels of thyroxine and another thyroid hormone, triiodothyronin, lead to hypothyroidism. Too much of these hormones, on the other hand, causes hyperthyroidism.
Iodine
Thyroxine is also known as tetraiodothyronin because each molecule of thyroxine contains four molecules of iodine. Thus, the amount of iodine in your diet is important for maintaining your thyroxine levels. The amount of iodine in your food depends on the amount in the soil where the food was harvested. Iodine deficiencies are rare in developed countries because iodine is added to table salt.
Thyroxine Supplements
If you do not make enough thyroxine on your own, you may need to take thyroxine supplements, also known as levothyroxine. Levothyroxine dosing can be tailored to meet your body's needs, but diet can affect the effectiveness of levothyroxine supplements. While taking levothyroxine, you should avoid foods made with soybean flour, walnuts, dietary fiber and cottonseed meal both before and after taking a dose of levothyroxine.
Considerations
If you are concerned about your thyroxine levels, talk to your doctor. Hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism are serious medical problems. Unless you have an iodine deficiency, your diet is unlikely to significantly affect the levels of thyroxine in your body, but you should still talk to a doctor before making any major dietary changes. A lack of tyrosine, the amino acid that is the precursor for thyroxine, could also lower thyroxine levels, but this is also unlikely.
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