Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Denise Richards thanked fans after they noticed her enlarged thyroid during the show’s most recent reunion episodes. She even changed her diet as a result of fans’ comments and was surprised how quickly cutting gluten from her diet helped. Richards, 48, included before and after photos on Instagram Sunday.
View this post on Instagram
“It’s amazing to me in a short time eliminating gluten from my diet how much my thyroid has changed,” Richards wrote. “A few of you pointed out after the [RHOBH] reunion that my thyroid was enlarged.”
Videos by PopCulture.com
She continued, “You were right, it was something I ignored until pointed out. I had no idea how much our diet really can affect our body and for me how toxic gluten really is … I thank all of you who sent me messages.”
She added the hashtag “self care.”
One fan asked Richards how long she was on a gluten-free diet before she noticed changes.
“Right away actually I was quite surprised. I’m a pasta and bread basket girl,” Richards wrote.
Surprisingly, this is not the first time a reality TV star has been helped by fans. In 2013, a nurse emailed Flip or Flop‘s producers to say she spotted a lip on star Tarek El Moussa’s neck, notes PEOPLE. After seeing a doctor, he learned he had stage 3 thyroid cancer.
“If she didn’t send that email, there’s a chance I wouldn’t be doing this interview right now,” El Moussa said in Chasing the Cure Saved By a Stranger in June. “If she didn’t send that email, maybe there are other people out there that never would have found out they had cancer because I didn’t have my story.”
El Moussa added, “Every day I wake up and I’m grateful to be alive. I’m grateful for the life I have. I’m grateful for my family and I’m just happy.”
Richards joined RHOBV earlier this year and recently appeared on CBS’ The Bold and The Beautiful.
An enlarged thyroid is also known as a goiter and are usually painless. They can “cause a cough and make it difficult for you to swallow or breathe,” notes the Mayo Clinic. The most common cause is a lack of iodine in your diet.
While most goiters are harmless, they could be signs of more serious conditions, like Graves’ and Hashimoto’s diseases or thyroid cancer.
Goiters can be left alone to heal independently. Richards’ gluten-free diet method has gained popularity online, but there is little scientific evidence to support it. A recent clinical study of 34 women with autoimmune thyroiditis found that a gluten-free diet “may bring clinical benefits to women” with the disease.
Photo credit: Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images
