If you watched Tuesday's
Chris Masterjohn Lite video on the harmful
effects of millet on the thyroid gland, then
you need to watch today's video, because
I have an important update for you.
Hi. I'm Dr. Chris Masterjohn
of chrismasterjohnphd.com, and you're watching
Chris Masterjohn Lite, where the name of
the game is, "Details? Shmeetails. Just tell me
what works!" and today I have some
important details for you because they
really provide important insights into
how this millet thing works. Last time I
told you about the epidemics of goitre
in the 1980s in the Sudan that were
clearly traced to millet. What I didn't
offer enough clarity on was the specific
type of millet. If different types of
millet were just different varieties of
the same plant, then it probably wouldn't
be a big deal. But millet is just a
generic name for small-seeded grasses.
And taxonomically, one millet may not
have anything more in common with
another millet than that they both
belong to the grass family. Pearl millet,
the most common millet in the world, is
what was being consumed at 30 to
70% of the diet during those
epidemics of goitre. There's another type
of millet called fonio millet that has
been shown to be goitrogenic, but it's
not a very important crop. In the United
States, as well as in a handful of other
countries, there's a millet called proso
millet. And in the United States, proso
millet is mainly cultivated as birdseed,
but it's also sold as a health food. In
fact on the Whole Foods Market blog, they
promoted the millet in their bulk foods
on the basis that it's not just for
birds. Proso millet has never been shown
to be goitrogenic. It hasn't been shown
to not be goitrogenic. And the reason
that no one has ever looked into the
goitrogenic effects of proso millet
is because there's never been any
epidemics of goiter traceable to
people who were consuming most of
their calories as proso millet. But I know
that neither you nor I are going to
consume most of our calories as proso
millet either. So the real question is, if
you're consuming proso millet as a
moderate portion of your diet does it
cause any harm? I see no reason to
believe that the answer is yes. And I see
no reason to restrict proso millet
more than you would restrict any other
seed or grain in your diet. So I called
several companies to try to find out
what type of millet was in the foods
that are labeled millet. Bob's Red Mill
told me that they use proso millet.
Arrowhead Mills told me that they use
proso millet. Udi's gluten-free told
me that the millet in their millet chia bread is
pearl millet. Wah wah Wah wah.
Here's what I would do. If you're gonna consume
millet, find out what type of millet it is.
If there's any doubt, call the company
and ask. If it's proso millet, I wouldn't
worry about it. But if it's pearl millet,
I would strictly moderate it. I don't
know exactly how much pearl millet you need
to consume before you start hurting your
thyroid gland. I'm sure you can probably
tolerate 5%, 10% of your diet. But
I wouldn't risk it because there's a lot
of foods in the world to eat, and there
really is no other food that has been so
clearly shown to harm the thyroid gland
in humans as pearl millet. So if you're
gonna consume pearl millet, I would
definitely consume it less than once per
day. The problem is there's no really
good way to know whether it's hurting
your thyroid gland. Because all of the
standard hormone-based blood markers
that we look at to assess thyroid health,
such as TSH, or T4 or T3, which are
all different hormones related to the
thyroid gland, they're not changed in
people who have millet-induced goiter.
The only thing that's changed is that
there's structural damage to the thyroid
gland, and it's so enlarged that you can
see it in the person's neck. And if
you're only causing a little bit of that
damage, the only way to see it is for
your doctor to order special tests that
image your thyroid gland. So the
bottom line is proso millet, fine;
pearl millet, no good. Now Hayley and Ale both
commented on the last video on Facebook,
that their vets told them that their pet
birds shouldn't be eating most of their
diet as millet. The millet in bird seed is
proso millet. And apparently
veterinarians are saying that if birds
overeat proso millet they get fatty
liver disease, heart disease and their
lifespan is greatly reduced. I'm not a
vet. I can't verify that and I can't
speak to that. But I can say that this
gets back to a basic principle of diet.
And that is diversification.
Diversification isn't just for your
financial portfolio. It's also for your
diet. And the reason is that there are
harmful substances mixed into every food
along with all the good things. And
although we do have to pay attention to
certain foods being much more harmful
than others, like pearl millet, we also
have to keep in mind that if we mostly
eat one food or if we only eat three or four
different types of food, the more
restrictions that we place on our diet
and the less diversity we have, the more
likely we are to, number one: have
nutrient deficiencies because we're not
eating other foods that may supply
missing nutrients, and the more likely we
are to get accumulation of toxic
substances because whatever bad thing
there is about that food we are
concentrating it and overloading
ourselves with it in our diet. So proso
millet I think is fine as part of a
diverse diet. There's probably some
quantity of pearl millet that you can
tolerate, but for me I'm not gonna
take the risk. All right, I hope you
found this useful. Signing off,
this is Chris Masterjohn of
chrismasterjohnphd.com. You've been
watching Chris Masterjohn Lite, and I will
see you in the next video.