Herbal Medicines for Thyroid Diseases

Herbal Medicines for Thyroid Diseases

Bhawana Singh, Shyam Sundar, Ashish Shukla
Copyright: © 2021 |Pages: 22
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-4808-0.ch011
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Abstract

Thyroid dysfunctions represent the most common endocrine disorders and a major healthcare issue throughout the globe. The drawbacks associated with the conventional treatment approaches calls upon for the need to explore alternative treatment strategies. Herbal medicinal approach has been used since ages; however, it is not acceptable by the clinicians. Currently, there is no scientific evidence for the efficacy of herbal medicines in patient management. The necessity to fight against adverse drug events, high treatment costs, and compliance issues is forcing the scientists to look upon for traditional herbal medicinal approaches. This chapter provides an overview of the efficacy of different herbal medicines and scientific evidence that necessitates their usage for improving thyroid functions. There remains a need for a careful and routine follow-up as a mandatory parameter before establishing herbal medicine as a global treatment approach.
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Various Thyroid Dysfunctions

Iodine deficiency has been considered as the most common cause of thyroid diseases throughout the world. Further there are significant evidences for the involvement of environmental factors that potentiates the risk for thyroid disorders. As discussed previously, there are several mechanisms in which thyroid functions are perturbed; pesticides, fungicides and insecticides have endocrine disruptors which directly hampers the thyroid functions by inhibiting the iodine uptake, interfering with receptor signaling, enzymes, gene expressions and transport proteins. Depending upon the different anomalies of thyroid functioning the thyroid dysfunctions can be broadly categorized into- goiter, hypothyroidism, hyperthyroidism (Grave’s disease), thyroid cancer, thyroid nodules, thyroiditis (Hashimoto’s thyroiditis) and thyroid hormone resistance. The disease management has been pretty straightforward however, inappropriate treatment, misdiagnosis, overdiagnosis sometimes possess the obstacle for disease management practices.

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