The Thyroid Gland and Parathyroid Glands

The Thyroid Gland and Parathyroid Glands:

The thyroid gland is situated at the lower area of the throat, and the four smaller glands called the parathyroid glands are situated inside the thyroid gland. The picture below shows thyroid and parathyroid glands. Though the thyroid gland weighs only about an ounce, its influence on our body is amazing and far-reaching.

Two hormones (called thyroxin and triiodothyronin) produced by the thyroid gland influence the various body organs to work effectively.

Also, the thyroid gland and the parathyroid glands produce other hormones that regulate how much bone is created and destroyed by the body each day. For this, the thyroid gland produces a hormone (called calcitonin) that helps our body to use calcium and phosphate in our blood, to create bone.

On the other hand, the parathyroid gland produces a hormone that helps our body to take calcium and phosphates out of bone and put them into our blood stream. It also helps the kidneys to remove more calcium and magnesium out of urine, and put them to the blood stream.

The parathyroid hormone increases the speed at which minerals (calcium, magnesium and phosphates) are absorbed from the intestine into the blood stream.

So when there are more minerals in the blood, the thyroid gland is likely to produce more hormones (calcitonin) in order to produce more bone. Likewise, the thyroid and parathyroid glands work together to regulate our bone strength (bone density) too.

So, you can see that we may have various health imbalances if we have weak thyroid or parathyroid glands.

It must be noted here that although the ancient yogis did not use the modern scientific terms and methods in their time, they were well aware of the impotence of the neck and throat area of the human body. So they created certain yoga postures for the health of this part of the body too.