Hyperthyroidism takes place in a person’s thyroid gland. Your thyroid is supposed to produce hormones that are in charge of controlling your metabolism, breathing, heart rate, and many more bodily functions. A person with hyperthyroidism has an overactive thyroid which causes the processes the thyroid is responsible for to speed up.
In the United States alone, 20 million people experience some kind of thyroid disease, and 60 percent of those people are unaware that they have any condition at all. Women are more likely to developing a thyroid disease than men. There is no concrete evidence as to why women are more likely to develop hyperthyroidism, but many believe it is because it is an autoimmune disease which women are more susceptible to.