Surgeons routinely removed it during heart surgery. Patients paid for it with their lives. It sits at the center of your immune system and shrinks with age.
I eat 2 oysters most mornings after doing a mitochondrial analysis thru Chris Maserjohn. Increased liver consumption, too, but not every day. Not sure how it's affecting my thymus, but I feel overall stronger, stronger than I did even 20 years ago. I'm 54 now. Thank you for the in depth content, it is much appreciated.
Thank you for sharing, Nita! You're hitting the two most important nutrients for the thymus. Oysters = zinc, which thymulin can't function without. Liver = vitamin A, which maintains thymic tissue directly. And no need for liver every day by the way. 2-3 times a week is plenty since vitamin A is fat-soluble and stores well. No wonder you feel stronger!
This is so interesting! With all that is required of the thymus, I wonder whether there needs to be a way for creating a thymus-bypass or thymus-cleansing procedure, following along the lines of kidney dialysis. Don't laugh! Worse ideas have occurred.
Every time I read about the impact of obesity on health I am shocked. For years, or at least for years in terms of rudimentary science and anatomy/physiology education, fat was presented as no more than a storage space for unused energy.
Was that ever wrong!
Most people thought that if privation of food were to occur, fat would pitch in to convert itself to energy, proving heroic itself to be heroic.
Turns out fat is not just sitting around the firehouse waiting to hear an alarm. Nope! All kinds of things going on, many of which appear to be not too good for us.
Ha, I'm not laughing! The bypass idea actually exists already in a sense. Thymic peptide therapies like thymosin alpha-1 have been used clinically in Europe for decades to provide what a declining thymus can't produce on its own.
Thymus cleansing isn't really how it works (based on what we know so far). You can't flush it out like a kidney. But you can change the metabolic environment so the thymus stops converting itself into fat as fast and holds onto more functional tissue. That's what the zinc, thyroid support, and body composition pieces are about.
And you're spot on about fat. The old 'inert storage depot' model was one of the biggest oversimplifications in medicine. Fat is metabolically active tissue. It produces estrogen, inflammatory cytokines, and in the case of the thymus specifically, the fat that replaces thymic tissue actively suppresses the remaining immune function.
A good friend of mine who knows a lot about these things once told me that you have to stimulate the thymus every day by giving your sternum a few light taps. Being a Catholic like me, he told me it was like when you go to Mass, say the "I confess" prayer, and tap your chest three times while saying, "Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault."
Eating oysters once a week is pretty much out of the question for me. I'm looking for a good zinc supplement to take, say, every other day. Hugs, Variana—your articles are pure gold!
this is such great information and deeply helpful. thank you for putting the pieces together. it's a shame we exist in such a disjointed specialized over culture where nothing coherent seems capable of existing. putting everything back together again is what you've done here for me.
Fragmented specialization is what I dislike most about modern medicine. The body doesn’t operate in silos, so this model falls short by design. It’s also unfortunate that most doctors aren’t incentivized to look beyond what they were taught in medical school. Glad this piece helped connect some dots.
Je suis entièrement d'accord, le corps est un tout. Il est aberrant de ne pas tenir compte du reste du corps. D'accord aussi sur le niveau des spécialistes (et de la plupart des généralistes) Ce qui me frappe le plus c'est le manque de curiosité et donc de connaissances qui demandent de se documenter, et de réfléchir. Le côté apathique. de certains spécialistes qui recrachent leurs cours sans chercher à comprendre. J'en ai fait les frais dernièrement avec un dermatologue qui me prescrit des corticoïdes alors que je lui explique que la dermatite péri orale que j'ai est dû aux dermocorticoïde ! Puis rebelote avec un endocrinologue qui accepte de me prescrire de la T3 mais qui veut m'en donner autant que la T4 cad 80 microgramme ce qui est extrêmement dangereux pour le coeur. Il faut à tout pris s'instruire et ne pas faire aveuglement confiance aux médecins. Un très grand merci pour votre excellent travail, et la transmission que vous faites.
Questions so women who have a complete hysterectomy remove the ability to produce both hormone, estrogen and progesterone. I am sure most doctors don’t talk about this and how important it is, they have put fear to even do replacement hormone therapy, saying it leads to cancers. next Question what happens now with the transgender receiving these hormones that are not normally in their body how does that affect this organ? Can it cause more disease because of it, or has anyone even questioned this. Just curious, because I don’t believe most doctors or PA even think of this organ, or they would suggest ways to keep it healthy right?
Great questions. After a complete hysterectomy, progesterone production from the ovaries is gone. The body still makes estrogen from fat tissue and adrenals through aromatase, so you end up with unopposed estrogen and zero progesterone. Such environment suppresses the thymus directly. Without progesterone, thyroid function also drops, cortisol rises, and the liver clears estrogen more slowly. Leaving women in this state is the actual danger, and that's exactly what most doctors do. The fear around HRT was based on synthetic progestins, not bioidentical progesterone. Completely different things.
Re transgender hormonal therapy. Standard male-to-female protocols use estrogen and anti-androgens. Progesterone is not included. Female-to-male protocols use testosterone alone. Progesterone is again absent. So in both directions, progesterone is missing from the protocol entirely. High-dose estrogen without progesterone suppresses thyroid, elevates cortisol, increases fat deposition which drives even more estrogen through aromatase. Testosterone in females suppresses ovarian progesterone production and itself converts to estrogen through aromatase. Either direction creates an unopposed estrogen environment with zero metabolic counterbalance. These protocols were designed to change appearance. The metabolic consequences, including what happens to organs like the thymus that depend on hormonal balance, are not part of the conversation. transgender hormonal therapy increases the risk of autoimmune disease, cancer chronic infections over time etc. Again, unopposed estrogen, suppressed thyroid, elevated cortisol, and absent progesterone is the exact hormonal profile associated with accelerated immune decline. And that's just the metabolic and immune side. The mental health consequences of disrupting the entire endocrine system deserve their own conversation entirely.
Tbh if doctors understood progesterone's role beyond reproduction and truly cared for their patients, post-hysterectomy care would look very different. And transgender hormonal therapy in its current form probably wouldn't exist at all.
Not at all, HRT can be life-changing when done right. The issue is what most doctors prescribe. Synthetic progestins and oral conjugated estrogens behave very differently in the body than bioidentical progesterone and transdermal estradiol. Most women just aren't getting the right ones.
So how do they get the right ones, women have a right to know these things, they have a right to the best health. What is wrong with these doctors why don’t they tell women these things? I feel really bad for women.
Synthetic hormones are easier to patent and standardize, so they became the default. the entire system is built around what can be sold, not what works best. Women absolutely have a right to know, but the people who are supposed to inform them have no financial incentive to do so. That's the uncomfortable truth behind most of modern medicine plus often most doctors don't know the difference themselves. They prescribe what they learned in med school and what the pharmaceutical companies pushed. Bioidentical progesterone and transdermal estradiol are available by prescription, you just have to find a practitioner who understands the distinction. Functional medicine doctors and integrative endocrinologists tend to be better at this than conventional gynecologists. It takes some digging, but the options exist.
WOW I am going to tell the women I know, maybe find these doctors who care about women’s health, thank you God Bless you your an amazing human being, thank you for your kindness and for speaking Freely for all the women who read this.
A note on nutrition and PUFAs: seed oil crops have been increasingly bred for low PUFA / high MUFA. I don't know whether this was led by consumer deman or producers wanting more shelf-stable products, but it's now widespread. Next time you're in the grocery store take a look at the oils section. Safflower and sunflower oils now have a similar PUFA/MUFA ratio as olive oils.
I eat 2 oysters most mornings after doing a mitochondrial analysis thru Chris Maserjohn. Increased liver consumption, too, but not every day. Not sure how it's affecting my thymus, but I feel overall stronger, stronger than I did even 20 years ago. I'm 54 now. Thank you for the in depth content, it is much appreciated.
Thank you for sharing, Nita! You're hitting the two most important nutrients for the thymus. Oysters = zinc, which thymulin can't function without. Liver = vitamin A, which maintains thymic tissue directly. And no need for liver every day by the way. 2-3 times a week is plenty since vitamin A is fat-soluble and stores well. No wonder you feel stronger!
New info. And much to ponder. Thank you.
This is so interesting! With all that is required of the thymus, I wonder whether there needs to be a way for creating a thymus-bypass or thymus-cleansing procedure, following along the lines of kidney dialysis. Don't laugh! Worse ideas have occurred.
Every time I read about the impact of obesity on health I am shocked. For years, or at least for years in terms of rudimentary science and anatomy/physiology education, fat was presented as no more than a storage space for unused energy.
Was that ever wrong!
Most people thought that if privation of food were to occur, fat would pitch in to convert itself to energy, proving heroic itself to be heroic.
Turns out fat is not just sitting around the firehouse waiting to hear an alarm. Nope! All kinds of things going on, many of which appear to be not too good for us.
Looking forward to reading more of your work.
Ha, I'm not laughing! The bypass idea actually exists already in a sense. Thymic peptide therapies like thymosin alpha-1 have been used clinically in Europe for decades to provide what a declining thymus can't produce on its own.
Thymus cleansing isn't really how it works (based on what we know so far). You can't flush it out like a kidney. But you can change the metabolic environment so the thymus stops converting itself into fat as fast and holds onto more functional tissue. That's what the zinc, thyroid support, and body composition pieces are about.
And you're spot on about fat. The old 'inert storage depot' model was one of the biggest oversimplifications in medicine. Fat is metabolically active tissue. It produces estrogen, inflammatory cytokines, and in the case of the thymus specifically, the fat that replaces thymic tissue actively suppresses the remaining immune function.
More coming soon, glad you're here.
A good friend of mine who knows a lot about these things once told me that you have to stimulate the thymus every day by giving your sternum a few light taps. Being a Catholic like me, he told me it was like when you go to Mass, say the "I confess" prayer, and tap your chest three times while saying, "Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault."
Eating oysters once a week is pretty much out of the question for me. I'm looking for a good zinc supplement to take, say, every other day. Hugs, Variana—your articles are pure gold!
this is such great information and deeply helpful. thank you for putting the pieces together. it's a shame we exist in such a disjointed specialized over culture where nothing coherent seems capable of existing. putting everything back together again is what you've done here for me.
Fragmented specialization is what I dislike most about modern medicine. The body doesn’t operate in silos, so this model falls short by design. It’s also unfortunate that most doctors aren’t incentivized to look beyond what they were taught in medical school. Glad this piece helped connect some dots.
Je suis entièrement d'accord, le corps est un tout. Il est aberrant de ne pas tenir compte du reste du corps. D'accord aussi sur le niveau des spécialistes (et de la plupart des généralistes) Ce qui me frappe le plus c'est le manque de curiosité et donc de connaissances qui demandent de se documenter, et de réfléchir. Le côté apathique. de certains spécialistes qui recrachent leurs cours sans chercher à comprendre. J'en ai fait les frais dernièrement avec un dermatologue qui me prescrit des corticoïdes alors que je lui explique que la dermatite péri orale que j'ai est dû aux dermocorticoïde ! Puis rebelote avec un endocrinologue qui accepte de me prescrire de la T3 mais qui veut m'en donner autant que la T4 cad 80 microgramme ce qui est extrêmement dangereux pour le coeur. Il faut à tout pris s'instruire et ne pas faire aveuglement confiance aux médecins. Un très grand merci pour votre excellent travail, et la transmission que vous faites.
🙏🏻
Questions so women who have a complete hysterectomy remove the ability to produce both hormone, estrogen and progesterone. I am sure most doctors don’t talk about this and how important it is, they have put fear to even do replacement hormone therapy, saying it leads to cancers. next Question what happens now with the transgender receiving these hormones that are not normally in their body how does that affect this organ? Can it cause more disease because of it, or has anyone even questioned this. Just curious, because I don’t believe most doctors or PA even think of this organ, or they would suggest ways to keep it healthy right?
Great questions. After a complete hysterectomy, progesterone production from the ovaries is gone. The body still makes estrogen from fat tissue and adrenals through aromatase, so you end up with unopposed estrogen and zero progesterone. Such environment suppresses the thymus directly. Without progesterone, thyroid function also drops, cortisol rises, and the liver clears estrogen more slowly. Leaving women in this state is the actual danger, and that's exactly what most doctors do. The fear around HRT was based on synthetic progestins, not bioidentical progesterone. Completely different things.
Re transgender hormonal therapy. Standard male-to-female protocols use estrogen and anti-androgens. Progesterone is not included. Female-to-male protocols use testosterone alone. Progesterone is again absent. So in both directions, progesterone is missing from the protocol entirely. High-dose estrogen without progesterone suppresses thyroid, elevates cortisol, increases fat deposition which drives even more estrogen through aromatase. Testosterone in females suppresses ovarian progesterone production and itself converts to estrogen through aromatase. Either direction creates an unopposed estrogen environment with zero metabolic counterbalance. These protocols were designed to change appearance. The metabolic consequences, including what happens to organs like the thymus that depend on hormonal balance, are not part of the conversation. transgender hormonal therapy increases the risk of autoimmune disease, cancer chronic infections over time etc. Again, unopposed estrogen, suppressed thyroid, elevated cortisol, and absent progesterone is the exact hormonal profile associated with accelerated immune decline. And that's just the metabolic and immune side. The mental health consequences of disrupting the entire endocrine system deserve their own conversation entirely.
Tbh if doctors understood progesterone's role beyond reproduction and truly cared for their patients, post-hysterectomy care would look very different. And transgender hormonal therapy in its current form probably wouldn't exist at all.
So when women take these pills for HT it does no good for them? That’s really sad
Not at all, HRT can be life-changing when done right. The issue is what most doctors prescribe. Synthetic progestins and oral conjugated estrogens behave very differently in the body than bioidentical progesterone and transdermal estradiol. Most women just aren't getting the right ones.
They need to stop the transgender surgery all together. It’s vile evil nothing good can come from it.
So how do they get the right ones, women have a right to know these things, they have a right to the best health. What is wrong with these doctors why don’t they tell women these things? I feel really bad for women.
Synthetic hormones are easier to patent and standardize, so they became the default. the entire system is built around what can be sold, not what works best. Women absolutely have a right to know, but the people who are supposed to inform them have no financial incentive to do so. That's the uncomfortable truth behind most of modern medicine plus often most doctors don't know the difference themselves. They prescribe what they learned in med school and what the pharmaceutical companies pushed. Bioidentical progesterone and transdermal estradiol are available by prescription, you just have to find a practitioner who understands the distinction. Functional medicine doctors and integrative endocrinologists tend to be better at this than conventional gynecologists. It takes some digging, but the options exist.
oh and progest-e drops are available without prescription. I pray it stays this way
WOW I am going to tell the women I know, maybe find these doctors who care about women’s health, thank you God Bless you your an amazing human being, thank you for your kindness and for speaking Freely for all the women who read this.
Thanks I can honestly say I had no idea
❤️
Removing the thymus was another trick by Big Pharma!
A note on nutrition and PUFAs: seed oil crops have been increasingly bred for low PUFA / high MUFA. I don't know whether this was led by consumer deman or producers wanting more shelf-stable products, but it's now widespread. Next time you're in the grocery store take a look at the oils section. Safflower and sunflower oils now have a similar PUFA/MUFA ratio as olive oils.