Finally! In the past, the overemphasis on hyperthyroidism and thyrotoxicosis and heart diseases has made many doctors think that only excess T3 and T4 is bad for the heart. We finally have an article that focuses on the real cause-effect relationships on the opposite end of the thyroid dysfunction spectrum: HYPOthyroidism. This May 2019 article co-authored by three women and two men from Portugal emphasizes the research on hypothyroidism, especially T3 deficiency, and its adverse effects on ischemic heart disease. In the past, I’ve written a prior campaign blog article about thyroid hormones and the cardiovascular system, but none of …
Category: Thyroid hormone conversion
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 diabetology, BG University Hospital Bergmannsheil, Bochum, Germany. SPINA-Thyr’s algorithm has been evaluated in multiple clinical trials with thousands of patients. (1) Its findings correlate with a wide variety of diagnoses of thyroid disease. (2) An online slide presentation further illustrates the technical details and usefulness …
No, T4 does not always convert to enough T3.
“T4 is converted into T3 at the cellular level in virtually all organs” This is what Canada’s endocrinologists claim at the opening of their statement under their recommendation “Don’t use Free T4 or T3 to screen for hypothyroidism or to monitor and adjust levothyroxine (T4) dose in patients with known primary hypothyroidism.” What does this statement so obviously omit? Disorders in thyroid hormone conversion. No, the human body does not merely convert T4 into T3. Such a simplistic statement hides the truth that during T4 monotherapy, many patients experience lower T4 conversion to T3, and more T4 conversion into “Reverse …
Thyroid hormone conversion
The molecular structure of Thyroxine (T4) hormone can be visualized as a horse. (1) This simple visual diagram can help you “see” what is invisible and mysterious — how T3 and other forms of thyroid hormone are created from T4. Imagine a molecule with two circles and a tail as the body of the horse. Next, put four iodine atoms around the two circles. Put two iodines on the head circle and two iodines on the body circle. Now you’ve got the thyroxine hormone — also known as “tetra-iodothyronine” (tetra = four) because it has four iodine atoms. However, analogies …
Ubiquitination: The glass ceiling of T4 monotherapy
UBIQUITINATION: This is the “Glass ceiling” of T4 monotherapy — in some patients, there is a biological limit on how much T3 they can get out of treatment with T4 thyroid hormone alone (Synthroid, levothyroxine). Scientists recently explained how D2’s gene (DIO3) is inactivated by rising levels of T4: “Although DIO2 expression is only weakly downregulated by T3, D2 activity is greatly decreased by T4 … D2 protein and catalytic activity are lost upon interaction with T4 as a result of conjugation to ubiquitin. [‘ubiquitination”] This explains why D2 exhibits a variable half-life that depends on whether its natural substrate …