Thyroid science history
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1965: Thyroid therapy of Christmas past
Quotes from McAninch & Bianco’s history of therapy for hypothyroidism: 2016 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4980994/ “In 1965, approximately 4 of every 5 prescriptions for thyroid hormone were for natural thyroid preparations” “Physicians hesitated to use L-thyroxine monotherapy over concern that it could result in a relative T3 deficiency”
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Trials of T3, desiccated thyroid and thyroxine in 1958
Here’s my review of this treasure, an article about T3 therapy from the scientific literature in the 1950s… TITLE: “TRIIODOTHYRONINE—Clinical Effects in Patients with Suboptimal Response to Other Thyroid Preparations” — LINK: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1512399/ In this article, “Thirty patients with evidence of hypometabolism or a clinically related condition were given triiodothyronine after suboptimal response to thyroxin or…
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HISTORY: Rosalind Pitt-Rivers, the co-discoverer of T3 hormone
The co-discoverers of the T3 hormone (triiodothyronine) in 1952 were Rosalind Pitt-Rivers, MD, PhD (London) and Dr. Jack Gross, MD, PhD (McGill) from Canada. Rosalind Pitt-Rivers’ early life Dr. Jamshed Tata, one of Pitt-Rivers’ many co-authors, wrote the Biographical Memoirs of Dr. Pitt-Rivers, in 1994. This work is the main source of this profile. Tata…
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HISTORY: L-T3 monotherapy in 1957
Sometimes science does not retain knowledge, but rather chooses to forget. After endocrinology fell in love with L-T4 monotherapy, it was too tempting to forget the history of the OTHER monotherapy — L-T3 monotherapy. Modern doctors might assume that because they didn’t have the TSH test back then, they were blind! They had no way…
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History of the three thyroid medications
Three thyroid hormone medications have had a long history of effective use. I discuss them in chronological order, from the earliest thyroid medication to the most recently invented. No new thyroid medications have been invented since the 1950s, although all three of them have been further refined, and various manufacturers exist for each of them.…