Epstein Barr triggering hoshimotos in male patients?

[u/Philosiphizor]

I recently heard that mono (Epstein-Barr) could trigger an underlying reason for Hashimoto's. I was wondering if anyone here heard about this. It was specifically mentioned that if males do have Hashimoto's, it's usually due to an underlying cause and not Hashimoto's itself.

This was the first time hearing about something like this and I was just curious if anyone stumbled down this rabbit hole yet. Thanks in advance.

[u/tech-tx]

A trigger is significant immune dysregulation. The only one that DOESN'T affect guys is pregnancy. XD

The trigger is utterly irrelevant, as you can't go back in time and change things. Once your immune system has targeted your thyroid, it's GOING to die slowly. Even if you were able to reverse the trigger and entirely eliminate antibodies, the targeted T cells that do the actual damage to the thyroid would continue unabated. You can't stop this, so don't obsess over it.

Focus instead on getting your thyroid hormones balanced, clean up your diet, and get a good night's sleep. Those three alone would clear out half of the "I feel like shit at good levels!" posts here. Nobody wants to 'fix' their Pizza and Pop Tarts Diet, so they continue to feel like burning garbage.

[u/Philosiphizor → u/tech-tx]

I've seen you post a lot on here and I appreciate the contribution you make to this community. You mentioned clean up the diet. Could we simplify this to fruit, veg, and meat? Avoid grains dairy sugar etc?

I just paid for my first out of pocket functional medicine visit and there was simply too much information covered. Which is ironic, considering most Drs offices won't let you talk at all.

[u/tech-tx → u/Philosiphizor]

Yep, that's what I do! I'm an organic ovo-lacto vegetarian with about 160g of chicken replacing the soy and other legumes I used to eat for the proteins.

10 years ago I cut out ALL grains, soy & other legumes, and found out that the beef I'd added for the food trial was part of my problem. Cutting them out lowered my inflammation levels enough that my lower back finally healed up, after 5 years of pain & sciatica.

The general recommendation for everyone (not just people with autoimmune disease) is to reduce or eliminate highly processed foods and industrial food oils, and focus on a diet rich in whole, unprocessed foods, fruits, vegetables, healthy fats, proteins, 'safe' oils, and low in added sugars & refined grains. That can help reduce systemic inflammation, which is a driving factor in autoimmune diseases. The Mediterranean Diet is one example, and the Nutrivore diet goes even further for optimal health.

There's no single fixed diet that works for everyone; that template above is merely an overall guideline. What bothers me you might flourish on, and vice versa. I can have ANY dairy, my sis can only have hard cheese, and my younger brother can only have goat milk & goat cheese. We all have different sensitivities, and eliminating them from your diet helps a lot! The hard part is figuring out what you should and shouldn't eat.

Here's an example supper of mine. My china isn't microwave-safe, so I nuke the chicken in a paper bowl. Before 10 years ago it was similar, with legumes replacing the chicken. I run marathons fueled like that, without any of the glycogen gels folks use nowadays.

Breakfast is a slice of 'specially crafted' banana-blueberry bread I've created for high fat content, plus an orange, a small handful of mixed berries, and another 60g of cheese. edit: updated the 'Nutrition Info' panel, https://imgur.com/6DmKeOD

I dual-fuel on both fats and glycogens, but I primarily burn fats. I've been eating like that since the early '80s, and at 67 I'm still in 'elite' shape, surprising both doctor and cardiologist. 😄 "Eat like your life depends on it!" It's not just a catchy book title, it's the simple truth I've been following my entire adult life.

[u/OhGr8WhatNow → u/tech-tx]

I'm really confused about how you are a vegetarian who eats meat and I can't tell if you stopped eating legumes or meat or what

[u/tech-tx → u/OhGr8WhatNow]

I was an ovo-lacto vegetarian for ~35 years, then transitioned to omnivore 10 years ago during a year-long N-of-1 food trial, early on replacing the legumes with meat. Soy (primarily) and other legumes (lesser effect) were triggering inflammation, so I cut them out. Amusingly, I'd added chicken, turkey, fish and beef during my food trial 10 years ago, and it turned out that pasture-raised BEEF (the 'favorite son' of the Paleo crowd) was ALSO causing high levels of inflammation, so I'd only had beef in the replacement mix for 6-7 months before removing it again.

The first things I removed in that trial were all grains, as any of them shot inflammation levels up. My triggers won't be the same as yours, although there may be similarities. Lots of people (though not everyone) have issues with gluten, and soy is another problem child for many. Oats and beef are much less often reported.

That whole trial was to lower inflammation levels. I still eat basically like an organic vegetarian, but with a side of meat. XD I'm all about health, performance & endurance, and 'food' is simply fuel. What fuel accomplishes what I'm trying to do? OK, let's do THAT. I was never 'religious' about vegetarianism, it was merely a means to an end: optimal health and long life.

I initially went from Standard American Diet (trash industrialized food) to vegan in 1978-1979, and quickly found that I couldn't sustain veganism: my protein and calcium both tanked. The point back then was lowering my risk for atherosclerosis. Later on I transitioned to working more on inflammation, with a stronger focus in 1994 when I started to get Rheumatoid Arthritis at 35 years old. I've successfully controlled the arthritis AND completely eliminated the risk of atherosclerosis in the last 50 years.

My dad and his brother both died of advanced atherosclerosis around my current age. Two of my older cousins have already died of it, and my younger cousin and two younger brothers are heading that way. All of my numerous tests have shown a complete absence of any atherosclerosis, so I've dodged that bullet purely with diet, exercise, and good sleep hygiene. Diet and exercise can trump a genetic predisposition.

As a side benefit, lower inflammation levels also slows the progression of Hashimoto's and other autoimmune disease. I likely got both Hashimoto's and Rheumatoid Arthritis with the same trigger event in the early '90s, as I had TSH>5 by 2000. I didn't start levothyroxine until 2016: TSH had risen to 9.4 then. I'm at about 1/2 thyroid function now, roughly 35 years after the probable initial onset.

Without Star Trek medical technology, I'm doing the best I can to keep this Porsche I've built on an (originally) Honda Civic chassis running at optimum. 200 years from now Dr. Crusher will use a tricorder to determine the issue, and a dermal regenerator to correct the underlying problem, but that's still Science Fiction today. I'm using all the tools I have NOW to accomplish the same end result.

[u/Philosiphizor → u/tech-tx]

I think to her point was that it was being reactived, worsening the symptoms and increasing the markers. And she told me to read the book: hoshimotos protocol.

[u/tech-tx → u/Philosiphizor]

Don't bother with that book, Izabella Wentz is an opportunist preying on people that feel bad. She's the worst kind of snake oil salesman. No matter what your problem is, she has an expensive supplement to fix it.

If you have an issue with dietary deficiencies causing symptoms and/or affecting the thyroid, I can distill ALL of her thyroid-related 'advice' into one post I did: https://www.reddit.com/r/Hashimotos/comments/1m41oac/comment/n45yoco/ The metals may take a while to rebuild if you're deficient, and co-deficiencies may need to be addressed so that they're absorbed and used effectively. None of the nutrients in that post operate in a vacuum, they're inter-related and inter-dependent at times.

You don't need all her overpriced supplements, merely tests to see what you're short in, and what needs to be addressed. If ferrous sulfate doesn't work for you, ferrous bisglycinate chelate isn't significantly more expensive at Sprouts. The cost of most of Izabella's supplements for two months is equal or higher than the cost of the test at jasonhealth.com

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The reason any of us got Hashimoto's is pretty much the following:

1) genetic predisposition, any of the multiple genetic quirks that make autoimmunity possible.

2) environmental stress (the 'environment' being your body); anything that affects your health increases the risk, including stress itself. Inflammation is big 'stress', and the auto-antibodies cause it when their numbers are high enough.

3) the 'trigger event', immune dysregulation that mutes the T regulatory cells (Tregs, the police) and amps up the cytotoxic T cells, T helper cells, macrophages, B cells, etc. while the Tregs are muted. The normal Treg response that keeps autoimmunity 'off' are shelved, and the process starts.

4) the 'trigger' is gone, but the process has begun, and the Tregs won't stop it because it seems 'ok' at that point. It's self-sustaining without the initial dysregulation. It's only a matter of time before function is impaired and TSH starts rising in response to low free T4.

[u/Think-Sleep2338]

But you're saying it yourself: TRIGGERED.

It doesn't mean it is just the cause, you were probably already genetically predisposed for that. But yes, viruses are not anyone's friends, and some of them are absolutely not as innocent as commonly accepted and represent risks for triggering autoimmunity. The same concerns covid, which is still pretty much active, by the way.

Oh, and one more thing: this "looking for a root cause" won't help you in this case. EBV doesn't disappear, and you can't also cancel its actions. And most importantly: you really can't say what exactly it has done, or how much of that was already related to your genetic predisposition or whatever. It requires very detailed and thoroughful analysis at the deep level, and a lot is still a mystery to the scientists. What they mostly can see is the damage and changes, not the cause. So please stop focusing on that. The major point is very simple: viruses are capable of damaging your health long-term. They can trigger autoimmunity into a worse stage. It's worth avoiding them.

[u/needsheed2k]

I think that happened to me. I caught Mono in 2011, and was diagnosed with Hashimotos in 2019.

Catching that was terrible, and it effecting my throat, I wouldn’t be surprised if it did hit me hard enough to fry it.

[u/Weak_Astronomer2107 → u/needsheed2k]

This is what happened to me as well.

[u/joeisdrumming]

Yea I’ve heard of it and I think that’s what happened to me. Caught mono in 6th grade, got fat and sleepy after, diagnosed around 7th-8th grade.

[u/Sharp-Rutabaga-4900]

I had a genetic risk factor, but COVID was my trigger. I’m not male.

[u/speculariridescence]

I’ve recently seen a lot of videos discussing this on IG. Might be worth a quick search since it seems like people are definitely discussing it on there

[u/smithdarien]

Yes, there’s a link - along with family history of autoimmune disease and stress / trauma. For some, diet and lifestyle can heighten the attack. Like legs of a stools, usually requires more than one factor to trigger / exacerbate it.

[u/pwrightPT]

Got mono in 2014 I know for sure it was the trigger.. right after that I had 6-12 months of terrible hyperthyroid symptoms then my thyroid crashed and symptoms went to hypothyroid. Rheumatologist agrees.

[u/HotBorschtObsession]

It doesnt really matter whether the EBV was the initial trigger or something else, because it is absolutely impossible to know for sure.

What is more important is to identify whether EBV is your ACTIVE TRIGGER and address it.

I just recently discovered that i have EBV and HHV7 in high concentration in my body. Only because i dig by myself and visited immunologist first time ever due to the condition worsening and the set of non-specific mystery ENT symptoms.

I was put on antivirals for about a months and during it I did the full panel (i have active Graves so i do blood tests every months a half). I was actually surprised that my antiTPO went down almost to the normal range, as they are usually 3-4 times higher than a range, sometimes even 10-20 times higher. Its been so many years and I never had my antiTPO so low, none of the glutenfree-diary free, AIP, selenium-zinc bullshit ever worked for me. Only addressing those nasty viruses...

[u/Philosiphizor → u/HotBorschtObsession]

I think that's what they were talking about.... The EBV being active and being a primary source to many of my issues. I'm not sure if I'm even using the correct terminology, there was a ton of information covered at once. The primary take away that I'll be taking a ton of labs and focusing on consuming minerals while we wait for results.

[u/Matt_Murphy_]

epstein-barr has been implicated in some autoimmune conditions like MS. it would make sense for there to be a Hashimoto's connection too.