Healthy thyroid axis
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The TSH-T3 disjoint in thyroid therapy
There’s a deep lie behind today’s TSH-based definition of “euthyroid” status and today’s policies of TSH normalization in therapy. The lie is that the loss of the thyroid and the initiation of thyroid hormone dosing has NOT altered and skewed natural TSH-FT3-FT4 hormone relationships. Yes, thyroid disease and therapy DO alter and skew these functional…
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Stop spreading the unscientific myth about the normal T4:T3 ratio!
Sigh. Just sigh. Even some of our best thyroid patient advocates can unknowingly share misinformation about thyroid therapy. Mary Shomon’s thyroid articles on Verywell.com are usually to be trusted. But yesterday I was saddened to see that an article supposedly authored by Mary Shomon was spreading unscientific myths about “normal” thyroid secretion ratios being 13:1…
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In Winter, everyone gains T3 except thyroidless patients on LT4 therapy
In this article I examine the research results depicted in the graph above. Gullo and team’s 2017 article reported research on 11,806 healthy controls and 3,934 thyroidless people treated with L-T4 monotherapy in Sicily, Italy. They discovered that the thyroid-disabled people lost a “significant” amount of Free T4 and Free T3 hormone in winter, on…
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Pregnancy thyrotoxicosis vs just a low TSH due to hCG hormone
Table 17.1 in Braverman & Cooper’s 2013 chapter in Werner & Ingbar’s The Thyroid textbook, 10th edition, lists many causes of thyrotoxicosis. One of the interesting causes of thyrotoxicosis, rarely mentioned in public discourse, is “Circulating hCG or Mutant TSHR [TSH receptor] hypersensitive to hCG.” What is hCG? “Human chorionic gonadotropin” is a hormone produced…
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Analyze thyroid lab results using SPINA-Thyr
This post walks through the process of using the SPINA-Thyr to interpret thyroid lab test results. OVERVIEW SPINA-Thyr is a free diagnostic application developed by research endocrinologists who use it in peer-reviewed medical research. SPINA-Thyr has been in development since the late 1990s under the leadership of Dr. Johannes Dietrich, Specialist in internal medicine, endocrinology and…