Are Your Endocrine Glands Or Thyroid Causing Your Depression?

Are you feeling depressed, tired, sluggish and generally lacking in energy?

Your endocrine glands, in particular your thyroid, could be contributing to your depression.

The endocrine glands include the pineal gland, the pituitary gland, the thyroid gland, the parathyroids, the pancreas, the adrenal glands, as well as the testicles and ovaries.

Not many people realize the importance of these glands in the proper and healthy functioning of the human body. These glands secrete hormones which play a great role in our feelings and behavior. When there is an underlying condition in one of these glands, which then causes imbalances in the amounts of these hormones – either too much or too little, mental disease is almost always a resulting symptom.

Indeed, research suggests that within any population of persons suffering from depression, there will be a significant proportion which is beset by endocrine-related conditions. And the one you are most likely to find could well be hypothyroidism.

Without getting too technical, T3 (triiodothyronine) and T4 (thyroxine, the precursor to T3) are like energy drivers in the body, regulating the metabolism of all its organs, including the brain. A deficiency in these vital thyroid hormones can cause one to become dry, dull, cold, sluggish, lacking in energy and depressed.

If such a deficiency is mild, the only symptoms could be emotional depression, and such mild hypothyroidism can only be flagged out using very sensitive blood tests. And for patients who suffered from depression for years due to mild hypothyroidism, as uncovered by a 1981 study at Fair Oaks Hospital in New Jersey, a multitude of other treatment protocols failed to help, and it was only through thyroid hormone replacement therapy that they found relief.

Further research revealed that mild hypothyroidism (sub-clinical hypothyroidism) was present in about 10 to 15% of persons suffering from clinical depression, and about 20 to 50% of depressed persons who were not helped by antidepressant drugs.

If you’re depressed and cannot pinpoint the causes, not even the physical ones, you could be suffering from hypothyroidism, too.

Main Resource

Baumel, Syd. Dealing With Depression Naturally. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill, 2000. Print.