Oxidative Stress and Graves’ Disease
Graves' disease (GD) is the most common form of hyperthyroidism. GD is an example of a type II hypersensitivity autoimmune disorder. It occurs when your immune system mistakenly attacks your thyroid gland and causes it to overproduce the hormone called thyroxine. The causes of this disease are not very well known, but it is generally felt that genetic and environmental factors contribute to its development. When you have too much thyroid hormone in your system, your body's metabolism rate can increase by 60 percent to 100 percent because thyroxine regulates your cells' metabolism. A higher metabolism can lead to a number of health problems, such as an irregular heartbeat or anxiety. The ongoing autoimmunity may contribute to increased oxidative stress in GD patients. Enhanced generation of reactive oxygen species and impairment of cellular and extracellular antioxidant systems is seen in patients with GD.
About Graves’ Disease
- Affects 2% of Americans
- Also known as toxic goiter, this disease can cause very serious symptoms to occur, some of them life threatening in not treated.
Risk Factors
- The cause of Graves’ Disease is unknown. There does tend to be a familial history of some form of hyperthyroidism in families, but that only raises the possibility of Graves Disease developing.
- Stress plays a factor in some cases, caused either by illness or major life events. Stress as a trigger both for developing autoimmune diseases or having flares is a well documented aspect of autoimmune disruption.
About Protandim®
Protandim is a powerful, patented daily supplement that dramatically boosts your body's own natural defenses against free radical damage, a leading cause of oxidative stress.
At this time, there is no evidence that Protandim can treat, cure, or prevent Graves' Disease, but we do know its positive impact on oxidative stress. Because of the known link between Graves' Disease and oxidative stress, you may want to begin by lowering your oxidative stress, which Protandim is proven to do.
