What’s the connection between gluten and thyroid health?

Gluten continues to garner a ton of attention. If you have a gluten-related disorder, such as celiac disease, you know why. But what about the rest of the body? For instance, what’s the connection between gluten and thyroid health?

Does gluten affect your thyroid levels?

Before dealing with any connection between gluten and thyroid health, it’s first best to understand what gluten and your thyroid levels are.

From this, you’ll better understand how and why there’s a connection and how gluten can affect your thyroid levels.

What are thyroid levels?

Your thyroid levels refer to the amount of thyroid hormone in your thyroid, with thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels being the amount of TSH in your bloodstream.

Your thyroid gland – an endocrine gland shaped like a butterfly and usually positioned at the front bottom of your neck – produces thyroid hormones. These thyroid hormones – triiodothyronine and thyroxine – control your body’s metabolism, heart function, digestion, brain development, muscle control and bone health.

Your brain’s pituitary gland releases THS into your bloodstream to stimulate your thyroid and produce more thyroid hormone. Depending on how much of the hormone is in your body, your pituitary gland will make more or less THS to compensate. If the thyroid level in your bloodstream reaches a certain level, the pituitary gland shuts off the production of THS.

If, for some reason, your thyroid produces too much or too little thyroid hormone, the THS production levels could become imbalanced. Low THS levels could result in the development of conditions like thyroid nodules or Graves’ disease, which could then lead to hyperthyroidism – a condition experienced by 1% of Americans over 18. High THS levels can cause the more common Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.

What Is gluten?

Gluten is the protein family found in grain products like rye, barley and wheat. Other grain-based foodstuffs – including some chips, candies, cereals, kinds of pasta, baked goods and some sauces – will contain gluten.

Gluten sources: wheat, barley, rye

This protein could cause you to experience symptoms like fatigue, headaches, bowel irritability, bloating or gas, concentration problems, depression, anxiety, and anemia if you’re one of the few it impacts. However, gluten remains harmless to most people.

Around 1.4% of people globally have celiac disease – a chronic autoimmune disease. Should people with celiac disease or a predisposition toward it consume gluten, it can attack the lining of their small intestines. Those without celiac disease could develop it from eating gluten, as well.

How gluten affects your thyroid levels

In autoimmune and celiac diseases, your body’s immune system errs by identifying cells and proteins as alien invaders and building autoantibodies to attack them. These autoantibodies then target your body’s own tissue and cells, causing the disease to spread and grow in severity.

If you have celiac disease or a diagnosed wheat allergy, there’s a strong chance you could have a thyroid disorder, especially Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Symptoms include gastrointestinal pain, headaches and heavy fatigue.

There’s also a portion of the population known as those with non-celiac gluten sensitivity (NCGS). While a 2018 study suggests a link between NCGS and other thyroid problems, most indicators point toward Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. It appears that both celiac disease and NCGS more often link to high THS levels and Hashimoto’s than to low levels like those experienced in Graves’ disease.

Especially in people with leaky gut syndrome – another condition that can lead to autoimmune responses – the body targets proteins like gluten as one of these alien invaders. It creates antibodies to attack gluten’s primary protein gliadin, which is structurally very similar to the transglutaminase enzyme found in your thyroid gland. In a case of mistaken identity, these antibodies attack the thyroid enzyme, believing it to be gliadin.

The result of your body’s internal error can be an imbalance in the thyroid hormones, leading to many of the previous complications. Leaky gut syndrome often manifests in those with celiac disease, meaning you’re likely more at risk of thyroid imbalances than somebody with NCGS. In Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and Graves’ disease, similar situations could likely take place with the presence of gluten.

Is a gluten-free diet important to protecting your thyroid health?

It’s difficult to determine whether being gluten-free is vital for better thyroid health. You should evaluate your specific health situation and make the calls you believe are correct.

“Should I be thinking about a gluten-free diet?”

If you have celiac disease or are diagnosed with NCGS, a gluten-free diet should be of primary importance to protect your thyroid. People with conditions like diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome or dermatitis herpetiformis could benefit from excluding gluten under certain circumstances, but these likely will improve their health in other ways rather than protecting their thyroid levels.

With the latter conditions, a gluten-free diet could encourage eating behaviors that include more fats and carbohydrates, which are more hazardous to you if you have one of those afflictions.

Gluten-free diets are more appealing nowadays, so if you can keep your carbs and fat consumption down, eating less or no gluten could benefit you.

The gluten and thyroid health connection is complex

There’s much to learn about how gluten explicitly affects thyroid health, with more research evidently necessary on the subject. It’s safe to say that if you have celiac disease or NCGS, being gluten-free will benefit your health and promote intestinal healing.

If you believe you have gluten sensitivity or thyroid health problems, consult a medical professional before changing to a gluten-free diet. Instantly eliminating gluten from your diet can be nutritionally detrimental, so consult a dietician before implementing a change.

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Beth Rush and Bill White are not physicians and provide this information for educational purposes only. Always contact your physician with questions and for advice and recommendations.

Beth is the mental health editor at Body+Mind. She has five-plus years of experience writing about behavioral health, specifically mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Beth also writes about the power of human design to reveal our full potential and purpose. You can find her on X @bodymindmag.