Your thyroid is a small, butterfly-shaped endocrine gland located at the base of the front of your neck, just below the Adam’s apple. Despite its small size - typically weighing less than an ounce - it serves as one of the primary control centers for your body’s endocrine system. Rather than simply regulating one isolated function, your thyroid acts as a whole-body metabolic pacemaker, influencing how nearly every cell, tissue, and organ uses energy. Thyroid hormones are the chemical messengers produced and released by this gland into your bloodstream to regulate metabolism, growth, and cellular function throughout your body.

As such, your thyroid plays a central role in your metabolism, energy, weight, heart rate, and mood. When it isn’t working at its best, you may notice a variety of negative symptoms, including fatigue, weight gain, brain fog, and hair loss. Some people live with these symptoms for years, even when their standard lab results look “normal.”

Rates of underactive thyroid have been rising in recent years. An estimated 20 million Americans have some form of thyroid disease, and up to 60% of them don’t know it.