Actress Zoe Saldana has an autoimmune disease that also affects her mother and her sisters.
In an interview with Net-a-Porter’s weekly digital magazine, The EDIT, Saldana revealed she has Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, which means she has an underactive thyroid gland.
“Your body doesn’t have the energy it needs to filter toxins, causing it to believe that it has an infection, so it’s always inflamed,” she said. “You create antibodies that attack your glands, so you have to eat clean.”
Hashimoto’s thyroiditis is seven times more common in women than in men, according to the U.S Department of Health and Human Services. It is similar to Graves disease.
Saldana, a self-confessed foodie has adopted a gluten-free diet along with husband, Italian artist Marco Perego.
“I had a great time in my twenties,” said Saldana. “Then your doctor says you’re losing calcium in your bones. ... I would hear those conversations with my mom and grandma, thinking I'd never get there. I’m going to live forever! But all of a sudden it hits you. ... it’s from night to day.”
Saldana and Perego are the parents to twin boys, Cy Aridio and Bowie.
The 38-year-old actress is busy, having just completed filming “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,” and starring in the newly released “Star Trek Beyond.” She is also scheduled to serve as producer for a documentary about missing and murdered indigenous women in Canada, entitled “Gone Missing.”
Saldana’s advocacy for women doesn’t end in Canada—she has taken the gender pay gap issue to Hollywood. She said the conversation needs to be had more frequently and loudly.
“The high road is no longer silent,” she said. “The high road is speaking up and saying, ‘You’re a [expletive]! What you are doing is unfair. I’m not asking you to idolize me, I’m asking you to pay me equally, because you always come to me whenever you need me for a press tour!’”
