Medical Research, Articles and Consensus which supports what patients already know

Thy­roid patients who have dif­fi­cult, by-the-book and medically-rigid doc­tors (like the vast majo­rity of Endoc­ri­no­lo­gists, repor­ted by too many patients) often ask if there is anything out there to sup­port what patients ALREADY know by their expe­rience. Slowly but surely, we are fin­ding them.

This page will list pro­fes­sio­nal research, artic­les, opi­nions and links which sup­port what we already know…or are at least in the right direc­tion. And you can use these to sup­port your argu­ment with your black-and-white phy­si­cian that cer­tain thy­roid treat­ments do NOT work, and there IS a bet­ter way to do all this.

***FOUND MORE RESEARCH ARTICLES THAT WOULD HELP THIS PAGE?? Use the Con­tact Me form to send the link to the article or com­ment. Remem­ber: I’m only see­king research that can be used to help doc­tors unders­tand bet­ter thy­roid treat­ment, as well as which cha­llen­ges their bad information.

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THYROXINE WAS NO MORE EFFECTIVE THAN A PLACEBO: Thy­ro­xine was no more effec­tive than pla­cebo in impro­ving cog­ni­tive func­tion and psycho­lo­gi­cal well­being in patients with symp­toms of hypothy­roi­dism. Thy­ro­xine did not improve cog­ni­tive func­tion and psycho­lo­gi­cal well­being in healthy par­ti­ci­pants. http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/323/7318/891

THERE’S BETTER TREATMENT THAN SIMPLY SYNTHROID OR OTHER T4-ONLY MEDS: At the 90^th annual mee­ting of the Endoc­rine Society, June 2008, it was announ­ced that T3 can be an effec­tive subs­ti­tute for T4. And…the tar­get TSH was .5 — 1.5. http://www.endocrinetoday.com/view.aspx?rid=28931 COMMENT: Even though being on desic­ca­ted thy­roid, with its T4, T3, T2, T1 and cal­ci­to­nin, is even bet­ter accor­ding to the expe­rience of hun­dreds of thou­sands, this announ­ce­ment is at least a good step in the right direc­tion. Hope­fully, they will take the final step!

T4 COMBINED WITH T3 GIVES BETTER RESULTS:

1. As far back as 1999, the New Jour­nal of Medi­cine repor­ted supe­rior results of a synthe­tic T4 and T3 com­bi­na­tion treat­ment, espe­cially on the brain and other tis­sues.  http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/340/6/424
2. And another one tit­led Thy­roid Insuf­fiency: Is Thy­ro­xine the Only Valua­ble Drug,   Jour­nal of Nutri­tio­nal & Envi­ron­men­tal Medi­cine, Volume 11, Number 3, 1 Sep­tem­ber 2001 , pp. 159 – 166(8), here: http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/routledg/cjne/2001/00000011/00000003/art00002;jsessionid=lciik5f9j3en.alexandra
3. And here’s another one from 2009 sent by Paul: http://www.eje-online.org/cgi/content/abstract/EJE-09-0542v1 (has a fee) but here’s where you can at least see the abs­tract: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19666698 They eva­lua­ted depres­sion and anxiety rating sca­les as well as patients own pre­fe­rence.
4. Also this one:  http://www.endocrine-abstracts.org/ea/0013/ea0013P316.htm
5. At first blush, this Ams­ter­dam study appears to give the same pro­pa­ganda of T4 only. But as you read on, it men­tions this: Third, recent ani­mal expe­ri­ments indi­cate that only the com­bi­na­tion of T₄ and T₃ repla­ce­ment, and not T₄ alone, ensu­res euthy­roi­dism in all tis­sues of thy­roi­dec­to­mi­zed rats. From 2001, Deve­lop­men­tal Endoc­ri­no­logy to Cli­ni­cal Research: http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?Aktion=ShowAbstract&ArtikelNr=48140&Ausgabe=227546&ProduktNr=224036

A GENE VARIATION AFFECTS THE ABILITY TO CONVERT T4 to T3 IN SOME (i.e. jus­tif­ying adding T3 to T4, or even bet­ter, using desic­ca­ted thy­roid). From the Jour­nal of Cli­ni­cal Endoc­ri­no­logy and Meta­bo­lism comes this article tit­led:  “Com­mon Varia­tion in the DIO2 gene pre­dicts base­line psycho­lo­gi­cal well-being and res­ponse to com­bi­na­tion thy­ro­xine plus triio­dothy­ro­nine the­rapy in hypothy­roid patients” May 2009,94(5):1623 – 1629.

Research conc­lu­sion: “Com­monly inhe­ri­ted varia­tion in the deio­di­nase 2 gene (DIO2 ) is asso­cia­ted with impai­red base­line psycho­lo­gi­cal well-being on T4 and enhan­ced res­ponse to com­bi­na­tion T4/T3 the­rapy but did not affect serum thy­roid hor­mone levels. A large patient study found that 16% of the study popu­la­tion had a variant DIO2 gene which impairs the abi­lity of T4 to be con­ver­ted to T3. Thanks to Terry for sen­ding this!

HEART ISSUES FROM T4-ONLY TREATMENT: The Jour­nal of Cli­ni­cal Endoc­ri­no­logy & Meta­bo­lism has repor­ted that long-term levothy­ro­xine repla­ce­ment the­rapy in young adults is asso­cia­ted with car­dio­vas­cu­lar abnor­ma­li­ties. http://jcem.endojournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/93/7/2486 2008  COMMENT: Of course, thy­roid patients have known this a longggg time as they watched their cho­les­te­rol and Trigly­ce­ri­des rise while on a lousy T4-medication, and some end up with heart pro­blems. But this finally gives some research on a FACT.

SUPPRESSIVE TSH RESEARCH:

1. This Pub­Med article from 2005 is about research which shows that even sup­pres­sive doses of T4 does not nega­ti­vely affect bone mine­ral den­sity. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16269872 And this one from 1993: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8252740
2. The Society for Endoc­ri­no­logy in the UK in 2010 did research which revea­led that having lower TSH levels while taking Thy­ro­xine repla­ce­ment is not detri­men­tal to health, and that low level was .004 to .4 !!   I also did a blog post about this here. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100315230910.htm

EARLY COMMENTS ABOUT PROBLEMS WITH THE TSH: This was a short forum with com­ments by David Derry, Ray­mond Peat, and indi­vi­duals:  http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/314/7088/1175#26029 COMMENT:  you can see the blos­so­ming of doubt about the TSH in these posts from 1999 to 2002.

CELIAC DISEASE IS A STRONG PREDICTOR OF ALSO HAVING HYPOTHYROIDISM: From the Oct. 2008 issue of the Jour­nal of Cli­ni­cal Endoc­ri­no­logy and Meta­bo­lism come this article which sta­tes peo­ple with celiac disease had a grea­ter than four­fold inc­rea­sed risk of being diag­no­sed with hypothy­roi­dism, a three­fold inc­rea­sed risk of suf­fe­ring hyperthy­roi­dism, and a 3.6-fold inc­rea­sed risk of deve­lo­ping thy­roi­di­tis. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081118/hl_nm/us_thyroid_celiac_1

MISCELLANEOUS RESEARCH TO SUPPORT BETTER TREATMENT: From Hot Thy­roi­do­logy and the Jour­nal owned by the Euro­pean Thy­roid Asso­cia­tion, this is a 247 pages of research on topics such as Thy­roid Can­cer, Thy­roid Meta­bo­lism, Iodine, Autoim­mu­nity, and much much more. http://www.hotthyroidology.com/downloads/eta_abstractbook_2007.pdf COMMENT: I con­fess that I haven’t made my way through all of it, but if you do it, you may find some real gems in this!

BIPOLAR CAN BE STRONGLY RELATED TO UNDIAGNOSED OR POOR THYROID TREATMENT: Dr. Peter Why­brow, a world-renowned expert on bipo­lar disor­der, published his fin­dings in the jour­nal Mole­cu­lar Psychiatry about the con­nec­tion bet­ween thy­roid and bi-polar. But it’s hard to find on the net. Ins­tead, here is one of seve­ral other artic­les which talks about this con­nec­tion: http://www.psycheducation.org/thyroid/introduction.htm

MISCARRIAGES CAN BE RELATED TO HYPOTHYROID or POOR THYROID TREATMENT: The follo­wing link takes you to a web­site with a study of preg­nant women with “nor­mal” TSH, but who are posi­tive for anti­bo­dies, who have fewer mis­ca­rria­ges follo­wing thy­roid treat­ment. Meds­cape requi­res a log-in, but it’s free, and it sends regu­lar e-mails on the latest research accor­ding to your pre­fe­rred topics. www.medscape.com/ COMMENT: Once again, this article pro­ves that a so-called nor­mal TSH means squat, and mis­ca­rria­ges can have a strong con­nec­tion to your undiag­no­sed or under­trea­ted hypo state.

BREAST CANCER AND THYROID PROBLEMS CAN BE RELATED: Many stu­dies have been coming out about the con­nec­tion, and espe­cially as rela­ted to your iodine levels.  Here is one tit­led from 2003 “The thy­roid, iodine and breast can­cer” from Breast Can­cer Res and Pub­Med. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12927031 plus “Breast Can­cer in Asso­cia­tion with Thy­roid Disor­ders” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12927040 From 2009: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19810133

T3 IS NOT ONLY ANTI-CANCER IN YOUR LIVER, BUT CAN HELP YOUR LIVER TO REGENERATE: From the Ame­ri­can Asso­cia­tion for Can­cer Research, this research study shows that T3 can not only be anti-cancer, but actually help your liver to form new cells: http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/60/3/603 COMMENT: This article shows that T3 REDUCES liver nodu­les, and you can won­der what T3 might do against can­cer elsewhere in your body.

DO WE NEED MORE TRIALS ON T4 and T3 COMBINATION THERAPY IN HYPOTHYROIDISM? Yup, this is a real live article title from the Euro­pean Jour­nal of Endoc­ri­no­logy, Oct. 6, 2009. And patients on desic­ca­ted thy­roid can shout a resoun­ding YES, YES, YES! We know the truth. When are you? Comi­cally, the begin­ning of this article sta­tes that “10% of hypothy­roid patients are dis­sa­tis­fied with the out­come of levothy­ro­xine repla­ce­ment. It is unli­kely that slight over– or under-treatment with T4 explains remai­ning com­plaints.”   NOT. The rest is good. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19808902?ordinalpos=9&itool=Email.EmailReport.Pubmed_ReportSelector.Pubmed_RVDocSum